CARM in Canada: A Shipper’s Guide to CBSA’s Assessment and Revenue Management System

If you import commercial goods into Canada, or you run freight for companies that do, there is a good chance CARM has already landed on your desk. The Canada Border Services Agency finished rolling the system out in 2025, and it changed who is responsible for posting security on a shipment, how duties and taxes get paid, and what happens at the border when something is missing. For a Canadian importer, a U.S. exporter acting as a non-resident importer, or a carrier moving freight across the border, understanding CARM is no longer optional. Here is what it actually requires, who has to register, and how to avoid the kind of hold-up that stops a truck at the line.

What Is CARM?

CARM stands for CBSA Assessment and Revenue Management. It is the system the Canada Border Services Agency now uses to assess and collect duties and taxes on commercial goods imported into Canada. It replaced the older, largely broker-run accounting process with a self-service online portal, the CARM Client Portal, where importers manage their own account, post their own financial security, and pay CBSA directly instead of relying entirely on a broker’s bond.

Why CBSA Built a New System

The old process worked, more or less, but it put almost all of the financial risk on customs brokers rather than on the importers actually bringing goods into the country. A broker’s bond covered thousands of clients at once, statements arrived on paper or in disconnected portals, and an importer often had limited visibility into its own duty and tax obligations until an invoice showed up weeks later. CARM was built to put that visibility, and that financial responsibility, back with the importer of record. It gives every business a real-time dashboard of what it owes, when it is due, and what has already been paid, instead of a monthly reconciliation exercise built on someone else’s paperwork.

For shippers who also handle freight moving from the U.S. into Canada or the reverse direction through Canada to U.S. lanes, that shift matters because it changes who your finance team actually needs to talk to when a duty bill looks wrong. It is no longer automatically your broker’s problem to sort out. It is yours, with the broker acting as a delegate inside your own account.

When Did CARM Become Mandatory?

CARM became mandatory for all importers of record on October 21, 2024. A second phase followed on May 20, 2025, when CBSA required every importer to post its own financial security in the CARM Client Portal to keep using Release Prior to Payment. Both phases are now in full effect, so any commercial shipment entering Canada today runs through CARM, regardless of value.

That last point trips up a lot of first-time importers. A CAD 25 sample shipped for a trade show still needs an importer of record with a CARM account behind it. Dollar value has never determined whether CARM applies.

Who Needs to Register for CARM

Anyone acting as the importer of record for a commercial shipment into Canada has to register, and so does anyone who supports that shipment in a customs capacity. That covers a wider group than most shippers expect.

One detail worth repeating here because it catches people every year: a customs broker cannot register a business in CARM on the importer’s behalf. Registration has to come from the importer itself, with the broker added afterward as a delegate. If you have been waiting on your broker to “handle CARM” without doing anything yourself, that account does not exist yet.

What You Need Before You Register

Before you sit down at the CARM Client Portal, gather the pieces CBSA actually asks for. Missing one of these is the most common reason a first attempt at registration stalls out.

• A 9-digit Business Number (BN9) issued by the Canada Revenue Agency. Most Canadian resident businesses can get one during the portal’s own registration flow. Non-resident importers need to obtain a BN9 from the CRA before they start, since the portal will not issue one automatically for a non-resident applicant.
• An RM import-export program account, a 6-digit identifier attached to your BN9 (something like RM0001). If you already have one, you enter it during registration. If you do not, you can enroll for it as part of the same process.
• A program identification number, for carriers, freight forwarders, warehouse operators, and duty-free shops. If your business held a BN9 and a program ID before CARM launched but never had an RM account, CBSA asks that you submit an online client support request before you attempt registration, rather than trying to self-serve through the portal.
• An individual user profile for every person who will touch the account. CARM does not use one shared login per company. Each employee who needs access signs in with their own credentials, through either a GCKey or a Sign-In Partner tied to online banking.

How to Register in the CARM Client Portal

The registration flow itself is short once you have the pieces above ready.

1. Create an individual user profile using GCKey or a Sign-In Partner.
2. From the First Time Setup page, select “Register my business.”
3. Enter your BN9 and RM import-export account, enrolling for either one if you do not already have it.
4. The first person to complete registration for the business becomes the Business Account Manager (BAM), the role with full administrative control over the account.
5. As BAM, delegate access to your customs broker, your customs broker relationship, and any other employees who need visibility into statements, payments, or declarations.

CBSA recommends assigning at least two Business Account Managers per business. If the only BAM leaves the company or loses access, nobody else can manage the account, and reinstating access is not a same-day fix.

Financial Security and Release Prior to Payment

This is the part of CARM that actually changed how importers budget. Release Prior to Payment, or RPP, is the program that lets your goods clear the border before duties and taxes are finalized, the way it has worked in Canada for decades. Before CARM, a customs broker’s bond often covered that gap. Since May 20, 2025, the importer of record has to post its own financial security to keep that privilege, not rely on the broker’s.

Without security on file, or without RPP privileges, a shipment sits until duties and taxes clear, which can mean storage charges, demurrage, and blown delivery windows on freight that used to move same-day. For a shipper who depends on predictable transit times, that is the real cost of skipping this step, not a line item on a compliance checklist.

CARM for Non-Resident Importers

A U.S. company shipping into Canada has a choice most people do not realize exists: the Canadian recipient can be the importer of record, or the U.S. exporter can register as a non-resident importer (NRI) and take on that role itself. Choosing NRI status puts the U.S. company in control of duty rates, customs clearance timing, and the landed cost the Canadian customer sees, which is often the whole point of offering it.

Either way, whoever is the importer of record needs the same things: a BN9, an RM account, a CARM Client Portal registration, and posted financial security. An NRI cannot lean on the Canadian buyer’s CARM account, and a Canadian recipient cannot lean on the U.S. exporter’s compliance in the U.S. The two systems do not talk to each other, and CARM only recognizes whichever party is formally named as importer of record on the declaration.

This choice also affects the freight side of the shipment. If your U.S. company registers as an NRI, you typically arrange the inbound trucking yourself and hand off to a Canadian carrier at the border, which is where a lot of shippers bring in a partner that already runs cross-border freight on a regular schedule rather than building that relationship from scratch for a single shipment.

CARM and Rising Tariff Volatility

Trade policy between Canada and the U.S. has moved fast over the past two years, with new duties landing on categories like steel, aluminum, and electronics components with little warning. That volatility has pushed more companies to look closely at how their landed costs are actually calculated, which means CARM’s real-time statement of account has become more useful than it was when it first launched. Instead of finding out about a tariff change on a broker’s invoice weeks later, an importer with an active CARM account can see the assessment as it posts.

If you are already working through how Canadian import duties apply to a specific product line, or you have been caught by one of the common mistakes shippers make calculating import duties, an active CARM account is what actually lets you see those numbers as CBSA assesses them, rather than reconstructing them after the fact.

How CARM Connects to eManifest, PARS, and Your Customs Broker

Shippers who have worked through ACI eManifest requirements sometimes assume CARM is the same filing under a different name. It is not, and mixing the two up is one of the more common compliance gaps we see.

In practice, all three run in parallel on a single cross-border shipment. Your CARM account and posted security determine whether CBSA will release goods before duties are paid. Your carrier’s eManifest filing gets the truck cleared to approach the border in the first place. PARS ties the specific load to a release request. None of the three substitutes for the others, and a gap in any one of them can hold a shipment that looks compliant everywhere else.

What Happens If You Do Not Comply

The consequences are straightforward and unforgiving. Without a CARM account, or without posted financial security, CBSA will not extend Release Prior to Payment. That means duties and taxes have to be paid in full before your shipment clears, not on the 30-day terms importers have historically used. In practice, that shows up as freight held at the border or in a bonded warehouse while payment is confirmed, plus whatever storage or demurrage charges accumulate while it sits there. For a shipper running tight delivery windows, especially around a trade show, a retail launch, or a production line waiting on parts, that delay is the expensive part, not the registration itself.

The impact is not limited to standard dry freight either. A held shipment of temperature-controlled goods loses its cold chain window while it sits at the border. A trade show exhibit that misses its setup date because of a CARM hold does not get a second chance once the show opens. An expedited shipment that was booked specifically to beat a deadline loses the entire point of paying for expedited service if it stalls in a bonded warehouse over a missing bond. If your freight has a hard deadline attached to it, CARM compliance is not a paperwork detail. It is part of the transit plan.

How Long Does Registration Actually Take?

CBSA does not publish a fixed processing time for CARM registration, and that is a fair question for anyone planning a first shipment into Canada. The portal registration itself, entering a BN9 and RM account and creating a user profile, can be done in a single sitting if you already have both numbers in hand. Where the timeline stretches out is on the financial security side. A surety bond typically requires an application to a surety provider, underwriting, and paperwork that can take anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks depending on the provider and your company’s credit history. A cash deposit posted directly with CBSA tends to move faster once the account itself is registered.

The practical lesson is to register well before your first shipment is scheduled to move, not the week it is due to arrive. If you already have USMCA certification of origin or other paperwork in progress for the same shipment, CARM registration is worth starting in parallel rather than treating it as the last box to check.

CARM Across Different Types of Freight

CARM applies the same way regardless of how the goods physically move, but the practical stakes shift depending on the freight. Goods moving by intermodal container often sit longer in the supply chain before they reach a final customs event, which can make a CARM account issue easier to catch and fix before it becomes urgent. A truckload crossing the border same-day on a tight production schedule has much less slack. Freight headed into bonded or third-party warehousing after import adds another layer, since the warehouse operator’s own program account and your CARM account both need to be in good standing for goods to move in and back out again.

None of this changes the underlying requirement. Whatever the mode, whoever is named importer of record has to have an active CARM account and posted security behind that shipment before it reaches the border.

Common CARM Mistakes Shippers Make

A few patterns show up again and again with businesses that get caught off guard by CARM, even well after the 2024 and 2025 deadlines passed.

• Assuming the broker registered on their behalf. Brokers can be delegated access, but they cannot create the importer’s own CARM account. If nobody at your company logged in and completed registration, it has not happened.
• Only one person holds Business Account Manager access. When that person is out sick, on vacation, or leaves the company, nobody else can manage delegations, view statements, or fix an account issue.
• Treating low-value shipments as exempt. The CAD 3,300 low-value courier threshold used elsewhere in customs does not carve a shipment out of CARM. A small promotional sample still needs an importer of record with an active account.
• Confusing CARM with eManifest or PARS. As covered above, these are separate systems with separate obligations. Being current on one does not mean you are current on the others.
• Waiting until a shipment is already en route to sort out security. Bonds and cash deposits take time to arrange. Finding out you need one while a truck is approaching the border is the worst possible moment to start.

A CARM Compliance Checklist

Where RoadLINX Fits Into Your Cross-Border Compliance

CARM is an importer-side obligation, and RoadLINX cannot register your business or post your financial security for you. What we do handle is the freight side of that same shipment: filing ACI eManifest on time, coordinating PARS with your broker, and keeping your cross-border shipment moving once your CARM account and security are in place. If you are setting up CARM for the first time and want to talk through how it lines up with your regular freight schedule, reach out to our team and we will walk through your specific lanes with you, or start with a freight quote so timing and cost are both on the table from the start.

Working through your cross-border freight checklist for the first time alongside your CARM registration is also worth doing together rather than separately. The two lists overlap more than most first-time importers expect, and catching a gap in one often means catching a gap in the other.

We move full truckload and LTL freight across the Canada-U.S. border every week, along with temperature-controlled and flatbed loads that carry their own documentation requirements on top of the standard customs paperwork. If your import volume is growing and you are outgrowing manual tracking of duties, statements, and compliance deadlines, it is worth having that conversation with your broker and your freight partner at the same time, rather than treating them as two unrelated problems.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does CARM stand for?

CARM stands for CBSA Assessment and Revenue Management. It is the Canada Border Services Agency’s system for assessing and collecting duties and taxes on commercial goods imported into Canada.

When did CARM become mandatory?

CARM became mandatory for all importers of record on October 21, 2024. Financial security through the CARM Client Portal became mandatory for Release Prior to Payment on May 20, 2025.

Who needs to register for CARM?

Any business or individual acting as importer of record for commercial goods entering Canada must register, along with customs brokers, carriers, freight forwarders, and bonded warehouse operators who support those shipments.

Can my customs broker register for CARM on my behalf?

No. A customs broker can be granted delegated access to your CARM account after you register, but the importer of record must complete the initial registration themselves.

What do I need to register in the CARM Client Portal?

You need a 9-digit CRA Business Number, an RM import-export program account, and an individual user profile created through GCKey or a Sign-In Partner tied to your online banking.

What is a Business Account Manager?

The Business Account Manager, or BAM, is the first person to complete registration for a business in CARM. They hold full administrative control and can delegate access to brokers and other employees.

How much financial security do I need to post?

Most importers post a surety bond equal to roughly 50% of their highest monthly accounts receivable with CBSA, subject to a minimum around CAD 5,000, or an equivalent cash deposit.

What is Release Prior to Payment?

Release Prior to Payment, or RPP, is the CBSA program that allows goods to clear the border before duties and taxes are finalized, provided the importer has posted adequate financial security.

What happens if I do not post financial security?

Without security on file, your shipments lose Release Prior to Payment privileges. Duties and taxes must be paid in full before goods are released, which can mean holds and storage charges at the border.

Does CARM apply to low-value shipments?

Yes. CARM applies to every commercial shipment entering Canada regardless of dollar value. The low-value courier exemption used elsewhere in customs does not exempt a shipment from CARM.

Can a U.S. company be the importer of record into Canada?

Yes, through the Non-Resident Importer program. A U.S. exporter can register in CARM, obtain a BN9 and RM account, and post its own financial security to act as importer of record for shipments it sends to Canada.

Is CARM the same as ACI eManifest?

No. CARM manages the importer’s duty and tax accounting and financial security. ACI eManifest is a separate, carrier-filed pre-arrival electronic filing of cargo and conveyance data for each individual shipment.

Is CARM the same as PARS?

No. PARS is a pre-arrival cargo release request tied to a specific shipment, typically filed by the customs broker. CARM is the ongoing account where duties, taxes, and financial security are managed.

How many Business Account Managers should a company have?

CBSA recommends at least two. A single BAM creates a single point of failure. If that person is unavailable, no one else can manage delegations or fix account issues.

What documentation does CARM require beyond registration?

Once registered, importers use the portal to view statements of account, pay duties and taxes electronically, submit corrections to prior declarations, and monitor transactions with CBSA in real time.

Where do I register for CARM?

Registration happens directly through the CARM Client Portal on Canada.ca. CBSA also publishes step-by-step onboarding documentation and user guides through the same portal.

How long does CARM registration take?

Portal registration itself can take under an hour if your BN9 and RM account are ready. Posting a surety bond can add several days to a couple of weeks depending on your provider, so start registration before you need it, not the week a shipment is due.

Does CARM replace my customs broker?

No. Brokers still file declarations and manage day-to-day customs work, now through delegated access inside your CARM account rather than their own separate system. Most importers keep working with a broker after registering.

What is a Non-Resident Importer?

A Non-Resident Importer, or NRI, is a business located outside Canada, often in the U.S., that registers in CARM and takes on the importer of record role for goods it ships into Canada, rather than leaving that role to the Canadian buyer.