What duty does coconut shell charcoal pay entering Canada from Indonesia?

6.5% under tariff item 4402.20.90.00, the Most-Favoured-Nation rate. The Customs Tariff prints a long list of preferential treatments at Free against that line, but CBSA's 2026 list of countries and applicable tariff treatments gives Indonesia MFN only, with no GPT and no LDCT, so none of those Free rates can be claimed.

How much GST is payable, and on what?

5% under section 212 of the Excise Tax Act. Section 215 sets the value it applies to as the value for duty plus all duties payable, so the 5% is charged on a base that already includes the 6.5% duty. Duty and GST therefore do not simply add to 11.5%.

Is the B3 still the customs accounting form?

No. CBSA states the Commercial Accounting Declaration replaced the previous customs coding (B3) and request for adjustment (B2) forms, and that CARM became the official system of record for imposing or levying duties and taxes as of 21 October 2024.

Importing shisha charcoal to Canada: the tariff treatment that decides your duty

By Mohamad Sinno, Charcoal Expert · Reviewed by Budi Hartanto, shipping specialist · Last updated 12 August 2026

Ask AI for an importer brief:

Import status in one paragraph

Coconut shell charcoal briquettes are a normal commercial import into Canada, cleared by CBSA under tariff item 4402.20.90.00 at 6.5% Most-Favoured-Nation duty, plus 5% GST. No import permit or licence attaches to the commodity itself. The Customs Tariff prints a long row of preferential treatments at Free beside that line — and for Indonesian origin, none of them is available. That single fact is the difference between a 6.5% bill and a zero one, and it is not visible on the tariff page. (Customs Tariff 2026, issued 1 January 2026; country list effective 1 January 2026.)

Finished goods racking

Finished charcoal is stored under cover and off the floor, because absorbed moisture is carried into the container and turns up later as weight, odour and breakage.

Duties, taxes and entry costs

Charge	Rate	Basis	Source, read 12 Aug 2026
Customs duty	6.5% MFN	4402.20.90.00 "Other", unit TNE	Customs Tariff 2026, Ch. 44
GST	5%	Value for duty + duty	Excise Tax Act ss. 212, 215

The second row hides a compounding step. Section 215(1)(b) puts "the amount of all duties and taxes… payable on the goods under the Customs Tariff" inside the value the 5% is charged on, so GST is levied on the duty as well as on the goods. Duty and GST do not add to 11.5%. The CBSA entry page works a full example line by line. Canada is the clearest case of one subheading carrying two rates, and the other destinations sit beside it in the country index of the master import guide.

The country-specific trap: two ways to miss a Free rate

Heading 44.02 offers Free twice over, and Indonesian briquettes miss both — for different reasons, which is why the trap is worth separating rather than summarising.

Route to Free	What it says	Why it misses	Fixable?
The Free tariff item	4402.20.10.00 — "Charcoal of coconut shell for use in the manufacture of activated carbon", MFN Free	Defined by end use, not by the goods. Briquettes sold to be burned are not that use	No — the goods decide it
The Free treatments	Printed beside 4402.20.90.00: "CCCT, LDCT, GPT, UST, MXT, CIAT, CT, CRT, IT, NT, SLT, PT, COLT, JT, PAT, HNT, KRT, CEUT, UAT, CPTPT, UKT: Free"	Those are treatments that exist for the line. CBSA's country list gives Indonesia MFN yes · GPT no · LDCT no, and nothing in the "Other" column	No — origin decides it

The distinction matters because it tells you what not to spend time on. The first is a classification argument, and it is unwinnable on burning charcoal. The second is not an argument at all — a certificate of origin proving Indonesian origin proves precisely the thing that costs you the 6.5%. Indonesia lost GPT eligibility years ago and the 2026 list still shows no GPT, no LDCT and no free-trade treatment.

For completeness, because a buyer comparing quotes will find it anyway: the same list gives Vietnam "MFN yes · GPT no · LDCT no · CPTPT". The tariff item prints CPTPT at Free, so Vietnamese-origin charcoal meeting CPTPP origin rules can enter that same line duty-free where Indonesian cannot. That is a real 6.5% gap between two supplying origins, and pretending otherwise would not survive a buyer's first broker conversation.

Carton marking station

Transport marks on the carton are what tie a physical box to the packing list and the transport document, so marking is a documentation step as much as a packing one.

Documents and conformity

Canada front-loads the administration. Since 21 October 2024 CARM has been, in CBSA's words, "the official system of record for imposing or levying duties and taxes", and the Commercial Accounting Declaration "replaced the previous customs coding (B3) and request for adjustment (B2) forms". Any guide still naming a B3 is out of date.

Importer setup — a business number with an import-export (RM) program account, registration in the CARM Client Portal, and portal delegation to your broker. The delegation is separate from a Power of Attorney and is the step most often missed.
Release Prior to Payment — CBSA states "importers must post financial security to be able to obtain release prior to payment". Without it, goods wait for cleared funds.
Commercial invoice, packing list and origin — origin is declared, not claimed for preference here, since no preference is available.
Dangerous-goods paperwork travels with the container from Indonesia and is origin-side, not Canada-specific — see below.

The whole sequence, in the order CARM enforces it, is on CBSA entry for charcoal.

Arrival, logistics and the dangerous-goods reality

Charcoal ships as declared dangerous goods, and that is decided at origin rather than by the destination. The classification, the carrier surcharges, the weathering and packing conditions and the documents that travel with the box are the same leaving Indonesia whatever the discharge port, and they are handled in the shipping and dangerous-goods section rather than restated per country.

One deliberate omission: this page names no Canadian arrival ports and no transit band. Neither was verified against a primary source for this run, and a plausible guess about a discharge port or a sailing time is the kind of detail that reads as authoritative and quietly costs someone a booking. Ask your forwarder for the lane, and treat any number you find on a supplier page — including ours, if it ever appears without a source and a date — as unverified.

Sealed and departing

The seal closes the chain of custody: once it is applied at the factory, any later discrepancy in count or condition is traceable to a specific point in the journey.

Questions Canadian importers ask

What duty does Indonesian coconut charcoal pay?

6.5% under 4402.20.90.00. The Free treatments printed on that line — GPT among them — are unavailable to Indonesia, which CBSA's country list shows as MFN only.

There is a Free line under 4402.20 — can we use it?

No. 4402.20.10.00 is reserved for coconut shell charcoal "for use in the manufacture of activated carbon" — an end use, not a description of the goods.

How much GST, and on what?

5%, charged on the value for duty plus the duty, under Excise Tax Act ss. 212 and 215. So it is not 6.5% + 5% = 11.5%.

Is the B3 still the accounting form?

No — the Commercial Accounting Declaration replaced the B3 and B2, and CARM has been the system of record since 21 October 2024.

Quoting a Canadian buyer? Message us on WhatsApp at +62 821 3924 038 for a country-correct document pack — classification and origin wording for the CAD, plus the DG paperwork, in the form their broker files them.

Sources, all read 12 August 2026: CBSA Customs Tariff 2026, Chapter 44 (issued 1 January 2026); CBSA "Customs Tariff 2026: List of countries and applicable tariff treatments" (effective 1 January 2026); CBSA "CARM: Features and benefits" and the CARM service index; CBSA Memorandum D17-5-1 (25 May 2021); Excise Tax Act ss. 212 and 215 via the Department of Justice (current to 17 June 2026). Import guidance, not legal or tax advice — classification, origin and duty are the importer of record's responsibility.