Promotional Products Canada
Since 2017 the EU and Canada have shared a trade agreement, CETA, that lets most goods of European origin enter the country tariff-free, which quietly makes Canada one of the easiest places on Earth to import into from Europe. We are a European partner, not a Canadian reseller: your promotional products and branded merchandise are produced across the EU, exported under our papers, with DAP or DDP agreed before dispatch and the 5 percent GST already stated on the quote, then delivered to Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver and Ottawa, express in three to six days after dispatch. One brief, one invoice, two official languages, et le Québec est servi en français.
Delivered across Canada
Ten ranges sourced and decorated across the EU, exported under our own papers and delivered coast to coast under CETA, most goods duty-free, with service in English and en français for every Québec order.
Clothing & Apparel
Branded t-shirts, hoodies, workwear and corporate apparel, decorated in the EU and delivered coast to coast with bilingual labelling built in.
Bags & Travel
Custom tote bags, backpacks and travel gear that clear customs cleanly under CETA and carry your logo to every commute and event.
Drinkware
Printed mugs, reusable bottles and thermal cups within Canadian lead and cadmium limits, seen daily from Vancouver to Halifax.
Office & Stationery
Branded pens, notebooks and desk essentials that put your identity on every Canadian desk and agenda, one clean import at a time.
Technology & Innovation
Logo power banks, USB drives, speakers and smart gadgets supplied in ISED-ready variants your Canadian clients actually keep and use.
Wellness & Personal Care
Branded wellness, cosmetics and spa gifts chosen to clear Health Canada rules, showing genuine care for teams and clients alike.
Home & Living
Kitchen, tableware and home gifts that place your brand at the heart of a Canadian home, from a downtown condo to a lakeside cottage.
Events & Outdoor Gear
Lanyards, umbrellas, giveaways and outdoor gear built for trade shows and festivals from Toronto to Calgary.
Not exported to Canada
Gourmet & Drink Gifts
Wine, coffee, chocolate and gourmet hampers are proudly part of our European catalogue, but food, drink and alcohol cannot be exported to Canada under our own compliance policy.
See what can’t ship →
Eco & Sustainable
Recycled, organic and reusable merchandise with EU eco credentials that travel to Canada as cleanly as the goods themselves.
CanadaEurope + Switzerland
Canada's supply map has long pointed south. The United States remains an essential neighbour with exceptional suppliers. But proximity is not the same as resilience - and premium promotional merchandise should be chosen on merit, not geography.
One Canadian brief.
One European partner.
A much wider choice.
ONE BRIEF, THREE VALID ROUTES
Choose Canadian sourcing when local manufacture, domestic fulfilment or community impact leads. It brings proximity, context and a powerful origin story.
The United States offers scale, mature promotional-product expertise and excellent suppliers. It can be the right answer; tariffs, border costs and policy cycles simply deserve the same scrutiny as price and stock.
Europe opens distinct design and manufacturing cultures; Switzerland adds globally recognised precision. Together they offer useful, well-documented merchandise with provenance and staying power.
WHAT EUROPE ADDS
European drinkware, textiles, stationery, technology and everyday objects can make a Canadian campaign feel commissioned rather than catalogued.
Where available, we source product-level evidence for recycled content, responsible forestry, textile standards and material traceability.
Victorinox, SIGG and Prodir turn corporate gifts into endorsements of precision, durability and restraint - qualities premium Canadian programmes want beside their name.
A wider supplier network gives buyers another answer when tariffs, policy, currency or availability shift. The aim is choice, not a new dependency.
Qualifying EU-origin goods may receive preferential treatment under CETA. Qualifying Swiss-origin products are assessed separately under the Canada-EFTA Free Trade Agreement. Eligibility depends on documented origin and tariff classification.
Where we deliver in Canada
Canada is the friendliest advanced economy on Earth to import into from Europe: more than forty million people and a trade agreement, CETA, that has kept most EU-origin goods tariff-free since 2017. We are a European partner, not a Canadian reseller: your branded merchandise is produced across the EU, exported under our papers with DAP or DDP agreed before dispatch, and lands with the 5% GST already stated on the quote. From boardroom corporate gifts in Toronto to the articles promotionnels, as Québec rightly calls them, at C2 Montréal: eight cities, two official languages, one invoice.
1Ontario
One of North America’s largest financial centres and one of the most multicultural big cities on the planet: around half its residents were born abroad. The TSX, the big banks, the MaRS innovation district and a conference calendar that never sleeps: budgets with the weight of a G7 economy get approved here, and the merchandise that walks into those rooms should look like it knows it.
2Québec
One of the world’s three great aerospace capitals, alongside Seattle and Toulouse, and a heavyweight of AI research around the Mila labs. C2 Montréal, the Grand Prix weekend and a business culture that runs, as it should, in French: we quote, proof and deliver en français, from the first courriel to the last box.
3British Columbia
Canada’s Pacific gateway and its largest port, with a film industry big enough to be nicknamed Hollywood North. Web Summit’s North American home, TED’s longtime stage and the greenest business culture in the country: eco certificates get checked here rather than skimmed: ours are real, GRS, FSC and OEKO-TEX on request.
4Ontario
The capital: Parliament, embassies, federal procurement and the Kanata tech park. Also the city that gave the world Shopify, the platform this very store runs on: government formality and scale-up energy share one river, and both expect paperwork that survives an audit.
5Alberta
The energy capital, with one of the highest head-office densities in the country and a fast-growing tech scene. Every July the Stampede turns the city into ten days of corporate hospitality: cowboy hat optional, quality mandatory.
6Alberta
Alberta’s capital and a quiet giant of machine intelligence: the Amii institute helped write the playbook modern AI runs on. A festival calendar all summer, government all year and one of the continent’s biggest malls.
7Ontario
The city wrapped around Pearson, Canada’s busiest airport, which makes it the first Canadian ground your order touches. A forest of national head offices sits minutes from the runway: the country’s front door and a genuine market of its own.
8Ontario
Quantum Valley: a small city with one of the continent’s densest tech scenes. The University of Waterloo’s co-op army, the Perimeter Institute and the cradle of BlackBerry: small city, outsized conference badges.
From Web Summit Vancouver in the spring and C2 Montréal to Stampede week in Calgary and the December gifting season everywhere: toques that survive a real winter, insulated drinkware, notebooks, branded apparel and welcome kits, produced across the EU and delivered by us to all eight cities, with export papers, CETA preference where it applies and the import maths on the quote before you commit.
One document instead of a surprise
Most suppliers treat the Atlantic as a complication. We treat it as home ground: here is the border paperwork of a typical order, declared in advance, so adding a European supplier bench becomes a decision your finance team can read.
COMMERCIAL EXPORT DECLARATION · EU → CANADA
The border is where we do our best work.
Canada FAQ
Canadian companies increasingly source branded merchandise, corporate gifts and event giveaways from Europe rather than from a single domestic or American channel. These twelve answers cover what a Canadian importer actually needs to know: duties under CETA and the UK and Swiss agreements, GST at the border, CARM registration, DAP versus DDP, which products cannot be shipped at all, which need Canadian certification or bilingual labels.
Section 1 of 3
The border is where most first-time importers lose money or time. These four answers explain what Canada charges, what it does not charge.
Short answer: Usually not, if the goods were actually made there. Canada holds a preferential agreement with each: CETA with the EU, applied since 21 September 2017; the Canada-UK Trade Continuity Agreement, in force since 1 April 2021; and the Canada-EFTA Free Trade Agreement covering Switzerland, in force since 2009. Most promotional goods enter duty-free when they qualify as originating.
The rule that catches every first-time importer: origin follows the factory, not the warehouse. A power bank assembled in Shenzhen and shipped from Rotterdam is Chinese-origin at the Canadian border and pays the regular Most-Favoured-Nation tariff, typically 0% to 18% across promotional categories; a tote woven and printed in Portugal qualifies for the preference.
Every quotation lists the country of origin per line and marks which lines qualify for a Canadian preference. If duty-free status matters, we steer the shortlist toward EU-made options: Portuguese textiles, Italian leather, German and Czech glass and pens.
Short answer: The Canada Border Services Agency charges the 5% federal GST on the value of the goods plus any duty, and a GST-registered business normally recovers it in full as an input tax credit. For most companies import GST is a cash-flow event, not a cost.
On DAP shipments the courier adds a brokerage fee for advancing duties and taxes: the classic surprise at the door. DDP removes it. If recovering the GST matters, make sure your company is the importer of record; see question 04.
Short answer: Three things on your side, unless you buy DDP and let us arrange the import: a Business Number with an import-export (RM) program account from the Canada Revenue Agency, an active registration in the CBSA’s CARM Client Portal, and a licensed customs broker. The invoice, origin declaration and HS classification are the exporter’s job, which is to say ours.
Since October 2024 the CBSA Assessment and Revenue Management system (CARM) has been the system of record for commercial imports: importers register, delegate their broker in the portal, and either post financial security or pay before release.
The alternative is DDP: our clearance partners handle the entry and duties and taxes are prepaid. Right for a first order, an event, or buyers who cannot recover GST. Where you want the input tax credit yourself, we keep your company as importer of record.
Short answer: Choose DDP if you want one invoice and nothing to pay at the door; choose DAP if you have your own broker and CARM account and want to claim the import GST directly. Both are Incoterms 2020 delivered terms; the difference is who pays and who acts at the border. We agree the term before dispatch and never renegotiate it on arrival.
Duty and tax figures on the quotation are estimates based on the classification, origin and value we declare; the CBSA determines the final amounts. Express is a separate decision and must be chosen before dispatch.
Section 2 of 3
Not everything in a promotional catalogue can cross the Atlantic, and some things can only cross with paperwork. We would rather lose a line at the brief stage than have your box sit in a CBSA examination warehouse in December.
Short answer: No. Some categories we do not export to Canada at all, some ship only with certification or labelling in place, and most of the catalogue ships freely. We tell you the tier when you brief us and propose a compliant alternative rather than a hopeful one.
We do not ship: food and drink of any kind, including branded chocolates, coffee and tea (importer licensing under the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations, administered by the CFIA); alcohol (provincial liquor authorities); cosmetics, lip balm, hand sanitiser and sunscreen (Health Canada notification or licensing); aerosols, lighters and perfume (dangerous goods by air); seeds, live plants, seed paper, plantable pencils and untreated wood (CFIA plant health); cannabis or CBD themes; counterfeit or unlicensed artwork; the remembrance poppy, a protected trademark of the Royal Canadian Legion; and Indigenous-style designs not commissioned from Indigenous artists.
Ships with conditions: lithium-battery items (UN 38.3 cells, compliant packaging, quantity limits, ISED certification for anything wireless); plug-in electricals (CSA, cUL or cETL mark, Type A or B plug, 120 volts); apparel and textiles (bilingual fibre labels, dealer identity or CA number, origin marking); children’s products (Canada Consumer Product Safety Act, with test reports); knives and multi-tools (folding and fixed blades fine, automatic and butterfly knives prohibited); food-contact ceramics and glass within lead and cadmium limits.
Ships freely: bags and totes, notebooks and pens, compliant insulated drinkware, lanyards and event materials, umbrellas, caps and labelled apparel, battery-free USB accessories, awards and packaging.
A product on the first list is not a negotiation; it is a saved shipment. Tell us the idea, not just the item, and we find the version of it that clears.
Short answer: Electrical and wireless goods, textiles, children’s products and food-contact drinkware. European CE marking is not recognised in Canada; Canadian rules apply at the Canadian border and the importer carries the legal responsibility. We supply the certificates, test reports and labels that make it comfortable to carry.
We obtain and forward the manufacturer’s certificates, choose North American variants and produce compliant textile labels. We cannot certify a product on your behalf, and for regulated categories your compliance team should review the documents before artwork approval.
Short answer: Federally, the Consumer Packaging and Labelling Act covers prepackaged consumer products offered for sale, so most corporate giveaways fall outside it; textile labels must be bilingual regardless; and in Québec the Charter of the French Language, strengthened by Law 96 in 2022, expects French on products, packaging and accompanying documents. For a national campaign the professional answer is bilingual artwork, and for Québec, French first.
Where the rules bite hardest is not the law but the room: an English-only welcome kit that lands at a Montréal office reads as a statement, not a typo, and the recipients are your clients and employees. Canadian corporate culture expects both official languages on anything national.
We flag it when a brief says Canada but the artwork reads Ontario. A bilingual layout or a French-first version for the Québec allocation rarely changes the price and always changes the reception.
Short answer: Standard catalogue items take 7 to 14 working days in production from artwork approval, express air adds 3 to 6 days after dispatch and customs 1 to 2 days: plan three to four weeks door to door, four weeks or more for bespoke items, and brief December orders by late October.
What goes wrong, in the order we see it:
We ship with UPS, FedEx and DHL rather than postal services, which kept deliveries moving through the Canada Post disruptions of 2024 and 2025. And the North is different: there is no road to Iqaluit, cargo arrives by summer sealift or air, and we quote it exactly that honestly.
Every date on our quotation is an estimate confirmed in writing, never a guarantee, and production starts only on cleared funds and written artwork approval. Those two gates make the estimates reliable.
Section 3 of 3
Distance is real, so the case for Europe has to be better than proximity. Here it is, including the parts that cut against us.
Short answer: Because Europe is the most stable, most certified and most differentiated second continent a Canadian procurement team can add to its supplier bench. The EU-Canada lane has been duty-free for most goods since 2017 and has not moved since; European safety and sustainability documentation is the strictest in the world; and merchandise designed in Europe does not look like what every competitor at the same Toronto conference hands out.
The honest counterpoints: the Atlantic adds three to six express days; small orders carry the same export paperwork as large ones, so economics improve with volume; and Asian-made goods pay the same Canadian duty from any supplier. Where Europe is not the better answer, we say so.
The market is not choosing between Europe and America. It is choosing between one supplier and two. Two is the resilient answer, and Europe is the obvious second.
Short answer: We are a pan-European operator, not a national webshop: an Estonian company with a Spanish sister entity and a UK subsidiary, delivering across 33 European markets and 67 destinations beyond from a single brief, with export documentation, origin declarations and Canadian import maths produced in-house. Borders are the business we chose, and Canada is one of the easiest borders in the world to do well.
Three commitments on every Canadian order: French artwork proofed by francophone eyes; Indigenous designs only with Indigenous artists; import maths on the quotation before you commit, with DAP or DDP agreed before dispatch and never renegotiated on arrival.
Short answer: Yes, and it is the use case we were built for. One brief can cover a Toronto head office, a Montréal team, a London office, a Berlin trade show stand and a Zurich partner, each under the correct tax treatment for its jurisdiction, with consolidated or split invoicing as your finance structure needs.
We split production by destination, apply the right artwork language per leg and dispatch on one coordinated schedule.
A Canadian company running a European campaign and a European company running a Canadian one are the same job to us, mirrored. That symmetry is the advantage of a partner that lives at the border.
Short answer: Send a brief with six details and you receive a three-tier quotation with landed costs for Canada; approve, pay the pro forma, sign off the artwork proof, and production begins. Prices show in Canadian dollars on our store and are quoted in euros with a Canadian-dollar equivalent on request; payment is by bank transfer or card.
The quotation contains specifications and decoration method, pricing per tier, origin per line, freight per address, estimated duty and GST, Incoterm, timelines and compliance notes; it is valid for 30 days. On written acceptance we issue a pro forma; on cleared funds the manufacturer prepares a digital proof; production starts only after your written approval, with a quantity tolerance of plus or minus 5%.
Start with the idea, not the SKU. The right product for a Canadian audience is often a different reference from the one that started the conversation.
Canada is outside the EU, which is precisely why it suits us. Most European goods enter duty-free under CETA, the 5% GST goes on your quotation instead of a surprise invoice, the products that cannot ship are flagged before they are ordered, and the ones that can arrive in Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver, Calgary or Halifax with the paperwork already right. Want a second continent on your supplier bench? Start here.
Request a Canadian quoteSee our 33 European marketsSwish & Click OÜ, Tallinn, Estonia, EU. Reviewed 7 September 2026. Statements reflect our understanding as an EU exporter on that date; confirm specifics with your customs broker, your accountant and the Canada Border Services Agency.
Contact
Prepare trade-show merchandise for Toronto, corporate gifts for teams in Montreal, welcome packs for Vancouver or promotional products for a Canada-wide campaign. We connect Canadian organisations with our European supplier network, then plan production, export documentation, international transit and the final delivery leg around the true in-hands date.
Our European offices
Swish & Click OÜ · EU VAT EE102889941 · EORI EE17301303 · Canada: import duties and taxes may apply depending on product origin and delivery terms
Canada, up close
Canada begins with the First Peoples, First Nations, Inuit and Métis, adds a French thread that never dissolved and an English one that learned to share, and in 1971 became the first country on Earth to make multiculturalism official policy. The result is not a melting pot, and Canadians will correct you gently if you say so: it is a mosaic. One person in four was born abroad, more than two hundred languages are spoken at kitchen tables, and two official ones sit on every label. If you are sending branded merchandise here, that diversity is not background trivia. It is the brief.
Six moments explain most of what a visitor gets wrong. Tap through them and Canada starts making sense: a country assembled by treaty, paddle, railway and paperwork.
Long before any border, more than fifty Indigenous nations traded across the continent: First Nations coast to coast, Inuit across the homeland of Inuit Nunangat, and the Métis Nation, born on the fur-trade rivers. The canoe, snowshoe and toboggan are Indigenous engineering: the founding technologies were invented here.
Takeaway: the story does not start in 1867, and neither should your cultural homework.
There is no single Canada to address, which is excellent news for anyone who enjoys getting things right. Six regions, six temperaments, one polite disagreement about what winter means.
Inuit Nunangat, the Inuit homeland, spans Nunavut, Nunavik, the Inuvialuit lands and Nunatsiavut. Inuktitut, written ᐃᓄᒃᑎᑐᑦ in syllabics, is official in Nunavut, and Kinngait’s printmakers have been world famous since the 1950s. The inuksuk is a messenger, and one of its oldest meanings is simply: you are on the right path.
Merch reality: there is no road to Iqaluit. Cargo arrives by summer sealift or by air, and we will quote the North exactly that honestly.
Before the railway, the country moved by canoe: an Indigenous design so good the French voyageurs adopted it whole and built a continental economy on it. Paddle it from ocean to ocean. Sound on, if you like your history with loons.
Bow at the Pacific. Salt spray, cedar country, and a very long way to go.
A mari usque ad mare, the national motto, means from sea to sea. Everyday Canadian upgraded it to coast to coast to coast, because there are three oceans and the Arctic one counts.
Bilingual is not decoration here: consumer packaging must carry English and French by law, federal events run in both, and Québec’s Law 96 makes French the working language of business in the province. Here is the same tote, three ways. One of these is the professional answer.
English only works coast to coast, right up until the box opens in Montréal. For national campaigns it reads as a first draft.
Small print that wins deals: Canadian French is its own voice. An email is a courriel, corporate gifts are cadeaux corporatifs, and we proof every French line with francophone eyes before anything goes to print.
Twelve words that buy you goodwill from Victoria to St. John’s. Tap one.
Weather is the Canadian handshake: universal, sincere and completely safe from Tofino to Torbay. Press the button until you sound local.
The Canadian corporate calendar, with the three traps that catch foreign marketers every year marked in red.
Eight facts for the flight over. Flip them.
Every region brings a dish, which is the mosaic’s most delicious argument. Flip for the story.
Three statements, one polite fabrication. Find the fib. Round 1 of 3.
Canada is outside the EU, which is precisely why it suits us: borders are our home ground. CETA has kept most EU-origin goods duty-free since 2017, the 5% GST goes on your quote rather than on a surprise invoice, and consumer goods carry bilingual labels because that is the law and also good manners.
A country that runs on two official languages and two hundred more at home was never going to blink at a supplier from Tallinn. Bring good manners and correct paperwork. We pack both.
Delivered beyond Europe
Produced across the EU and exported under our papers to more than sixty further markets, with import taxes on the quote rather than at the door. Tap any market to start a quote.
Canada and the Caribbean
United States, by region
Northeast
South
Midwest
West
Latin America
Middle East and North Africa
Wider Europe
Asia-Pacific
