Cross-Border Watch Purchases: A Collector’s Guide from Canada

“Consideration for buying watches outside of Canada.” :  DRAFT Pending Photos and Editing

Seller & Platform

The first consideration is deciding on the seller and platform. In addition to your research on the topic, give extra consideration to resolving cross-border issues. Generally, the higher the value and more unconstrained the selling platform, the more diligence I put in.

Given the original MSRP of $6,907 USD, I would normally have contacted Cartier’s online store; however, I was hesitant without having experienced the watch in person.

As it happened, I was looking to sell a watch and found the black lacquer Dumont as an option for trade with Watchbox, a professional dealer. Listed at $8,248 USD, the agent reduced the price to $8,000, accepting my watch as a trade-in valued at $2,500. Hence out-of-pocket $5,500 USD.

My trade-in watch was popular, hence Watchbox offered me a trade value of $300 less than what I expected in private sale. Shipping and insurance were only $10 which was waived at the end of the day.

The best value for out-of-country is best purchased from a professional dealer. Though I’ve had success otherwise, the savings, factoring in trade-in logistics, became negligible; especially considering shipping and full insurance.

Crunch the Numbers

Including duties, taxes, and brokerage, I expected to pay $7,059.22 USD ($9,442.96 CAD). However, I received a discretionary waiver of border duties, reducing the total to $6,565.95 USD ($8,783.17 CAD).

Initially, I did not include the additional trade value in my border duties calculations.

A few factors to highlight,

• The Border Duties agent had discretionary power and removed the “Border Duties” of $541.31 CAD.
• The Canada Duties Calculator (as of Jan 2024) has a bug calculating at 13.65% instead of 13%
• Payments fees amounted to only 0.435% of the wire cost.

The total was not as bad as I thought it’d be, but I do regret not ordering the Santos directly from Cartier online when I had the opportunity.

Declaration Value & Insurance

Where additional costs are concerned, the most important aspect of cross-border purchases is declared value, which includes “trade value” too.

Some Sellers may offer or be ok with declaring a watch at a lower value than what was paid. This could result in substantially lower duties and taxes. However, there are risks you should be aware of if the watch is misdeclared,

• Insurance: Declared value, though different from insurance, is often used by the Insurance company along with purchase value. As such, the Seller might not be in a financial position to refund you.
• Border Office Fines: On random inspection, if the assessed value is misrepresented, the fine to release – which is also is an  may be 2x-4x what you’d normally pay.
• Past and Future Scrutiny: Though it is incumbent on the Sender to declare the appropriate value, even if there is no evidence you had “conspired”, there may still be an investigation into past – requesting receipts – and future scrutiny.
• Watch Trades: New to me, the trade-in value must be declared at fair market or per an agreed discount.

Watchbox has a transparent policy. They emailed me an invoice noting the total sale of $8,000, which combined the trade value of $2,500 with the $5,500 I paid out of pocket. The watch was declared for duties, taxes, and insurance totalling $8,000 USD ($10,866.16 CAD), with the package labelled as a “pre-owned measuring instrument”.

Finally, Professional Dealers often describe the watch on the packing slip as a pre-owned, “precision instrument”, “mechanical instrument” or “measuring instrument”. I believe this is done to deter theft.

Clearing Duties & Taxes

Self-clearing (aka self-account) is only sometimes advantageous.

It would have cost $12.88 CAD to use FedEx’s brokerage service, a 2.5-hour drive (to CBSA and FedEx Clearance) paying $25.40 CAD of tolls.

As it turned out, I had a work meeting in the area, so the actual cost was 20 minutes of driving and 45 minutes of clearing and pickup which I recorded at $0 for simplicity.

Self-clearing saved me $824.98 CAD and was well worth the trip.

CBSA (Canada Border Services Agency) provides online instructions, but here are my abridged notes.

Call the Courier: Let them know you intend to self-clear upon the package arriving in your country and they will hold it at the warehouse.

Pick-Up from Warehouse: Often the Courier warehouse will be near the clearing office. It might sound convenient, but review my notes below on Handling Delivery.

Visit a local CBSA office that offers accounting services to the public.

Your courier should email you everything you need. Otherwise, you’ll have to provide the shipment identification/tracking number, the commercial invoice (receipt), and personal identification upon arrival at the CBSA office. I highly recommend printing everything out.

I provided my tracking number to FedEx who emailed me a PDF with everything I needed.

In addition, as I wanted to see if there was any leeway, I also contacted Watchbox for my receipt (to use as the Commercial Invoice) as it included the trade value.

If sending someone else, as a casual importer, the CBSA will require a letter of authorization and a photocopy of your identification;

At the CBSA, pay at the office and obtain an official receipt indicating paid duties and taxes. While there (I need to confirm) I highly recommend requesting a Certificate of Registration (Form BSF407) green card. This Certificate of Registration ensures you can travel with your watch and never expires.

You can email the receipt to your courier and have a copy ready to be presented to the courier upon delivery.

Finally, if you accidentally cleared, but feel the valuation was incorrect, you can submit for a dispute and refund.

Handling Delivery

I think it goes without saying, but insured, tracked with signature shipping is must.

If you intend to pick up yourself check call ahead to ensure the package can be brought to the front desk.

The shipping tracker showed my watch was at the FedEx warehouse being held 15 minutes from Border Services. However, after showing proof of duties payment, I was informed it was only releasable at my address. I never got a straight answer, but I suspect the watch was packed at the back of a truck and it would be too much effort to get to it.

Before you sign off on receiving your parcel, inspect for physical damage.

Though I’ve never had trouble, I often video the package being opened, the watch inspected, wound and confirmed to be running. This would help with disputes if the watch arrived damaged.

Ownership & Warranty

The final often overlooked step is to finalize your ownership of the watch. If someone else registered the watch, you can go to the official Service Center, show the watch and they will transfer the ownership. I’ve never been asked for proof of purchase, but recommend bringing it.

In my case, I created an account at Cartier Care and registered my watch right without any issues. Being a new watch, not only did it still have a warranty left, I received an additional extension of 6 years for registering online.

While you’re on the computer, I also recommend digitally archiving your receipts and serial numbers for insurance, or travel situations where you forgot to declare as a local good with customs.

Closing Thoughts

Wrapping up, the toughest part of cross-border watch buying is often crunching the numbers, but I hope these notes make that easier for you. That said, the key to success is choosing the right Seller, community and platform – something that might get a dedicated future post if there’s interest.

Once you get a handle on the logistics of cross-border shopping, it is absolutely worth it. The global market offers access to incredible watches. I hope you found this guide helpful, and if I missed anything or you have tips, please share – I’d love to hear from you!