You do not need a CRA business number to hand a personal parcel to a carrier bound for the United States. You need one as soon as you ship commercially: the commercial invoice and customs paperwork ask for a tax identifier, and in Canada that role is played by the 9-digit CRA business number. For commercial goods crossing the border it is more precisely the import-export program account, the RM suffix, that identifies you to the CBSA. Registering for a business number with the CRA is free. Your own situation depends on your business structure and on who is named importer of record: confirm it with the CRA or a customs broker.
What a CRA business number actually is
The business number (BN) is a 9-digit identifier issued by the Canada Revenue Agency. It identifies your business to federal programs, and to a number of provincial and municipal ones. On its own it does nothing: what determines your capabilities are the program accounts attached to it. Each program account appends a 6-character suffix to the 9-digit number, in the form of two letters followed by four digits.
| Program account | Suffix | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| GST/HST | RT | Charging and remitting GST/HST |
| Payroll | RP | Source deductions for employees |
| Corporate income tax | RC | Income tax for an incorporated business |
| Import-export | RM | Commercial goods crossing the border |
That last row is the one a shipper cares about. The RM account is what the Canada Border Services Agency associates with commercial import and export activity. A BN without an RM account serves your bookkeeping, not your customs paperwork.
Do you actually need one?
The dividing line is not the value of the parcel or where it is going: it is whether the shipment is commercial. A gift sent to family is not a commercial import. Goods sold by a registered business are, even if it is a single $30 item.
| What you are shipping | Business number likely needed? |
|---|---|
| A personal gift to family in the US | No: it is not a commercial import |
| An occasional personal sale, no registered business | Usually no, though the invoice must still describe and value the contents |
| Goods sold by a registered Canadian business | Yes: you are shipping commercially |
| Goods you import into Canada for resale | Yes, with an RM account, plus registration in the CBSA portal |
| A return going back to a US supplier | It depends on who is named importer of record |
This is general information, not tax or customs advice. CRA and CBSA requirements change and depend on your business structure, what you sell and who is named importer of record. Confirm your own situation with the CRA, the CBSA or a licensed customs broker before relying on any of it. The tax-identifier fields each carrier actually requires are shown at the rate and label step.
Exporting and importing do not ask the same of you
This is the most common confusion. The RM account covers both directions, but the administrative weight is not the same. Importing into Canada is the heavy direction: the CBSA wants an importer who is identified, registered and accountable for duties and taxes. Exporting to the United States is lighter on the Canadian side, because the country collecting duty is the one at arrival, not the one at departure.
- Going to the US: US customs cares first about the importer of record, which is most often your American customer. Your job is to supply an accurate commercial invoice.
- Coming into Canada: the CBSA cares about you. That is where the RM account and portal registration move from nice-to-have to unavoidable.
- In both directions: a missing or wrong number on the invoice is a classic cause of a customs hold, and a hold costs more in delay than in fees.
What the US side asks you for
Your Canadian business number is a Canadian identifier: it does not substitute for a US one. In the usual setup for a Canadian small business selling online, your American customer is the importer of record and supplies their own identity at clearance. You remain the exporter, and your BN appears as the shipper identifier.
That changes if you choose to absorb duties and taxes on the recipient’s behalf, which carriers usually label DDP or delivered duty paid. You then become the paying party, and depending on what you ship you may need a US identifier or a broker acting for you. That is the point to talk to a broker rather than guess.
One piece of recent context matters here: since the US de minimis exemption was suspended, more commercial shipments into the United States go through a proper customs entry. In practice, the identity fields on your documents are read more often than they used to be. Clean paperwork is worth more than it was a year ago.
Where the number shows up on your shipping paperwork
You do not type your business number into every shipment. It is configured once in your shipping profile, then carried automatically onto the documents that need it.
| Document | What it carries |
|---|---|
| Commercial invoice | Shipper, consignee, importer of record, tax identifiers, description, value, HS code, origin |
| Customs declaration (postal shipments) | Description, value, origin, and the shipper identifier when commercial |
| Shipper profile | Business number and GST/HST number, entered once |
In MesColis, the business number and GST/HST number live in your billing settings and then feed your invoices and customs documents. We are not the only tool that does this, and we do not claim to be the cheapest on every lane: what we do is show you Canada Post, Purolator, UPS, FedEx and other rates side by side for the same parcel, with real arrival dates, so comparison replaces assumption.
Frequently asked questions
How much does a business number cost?
Registering with the CRA is free, including adding program accounts such as the RM import-export account. Be wary of services that charge purely to fill in the application on your behalf.
I have a GST/HST number. Is that the same thing?
Partly. Your GST/HST number is built on the same 9-digit business number, with the RT suffix. So you already have a BN. What you may not have is the RM import-export program account, which is added separately.
Can I ship commercially before my number comes through?
A carrier will physically accept your parcel, but that is not the right question: the risk shows up at clearance, not at the counter. Because applications take time to process, apply before your first busy season rather than at the moment a shipment is already being held.