Shipping to Canada?
 

I am nearing the last month or so of my trip and I am planning on shipping my motorcycle from London to Toronto in September. I got a decent quote from a shipping company in London, but they do not provide a crate. I have previously built my own crate when shipping from New York to Iceland, and had to problems or special crating requirements.

After doing a bit of research to prepare for the shipment back to Canada, I have found that, in order to ship to Canada, the crate must be made with ISPM-15 compliant lumber with the IPPC certification stamp. It needs to be heat treated and fumigated using methyl bromide per IPPC standards.

Has anyone had any experience with this or know anything more about this?

Hi Rockwell:

I've shipped my bike back and forth between Canada and Europe numerous times. I've always shipped it by air, using Motorcycle Express to organize things for me. Their rates vary a bit depending on the point of origin and the destination. I usually ship Paris to Toronto (and vice-versa) because that is significantly less expensive than shipping out of the UK.

If you ship by air, the bike doesn't need to be crated. Just show up with less than 1/4 of a tank of fuel in it. No need to disconnect the batteries, etc. You just ride up to the freight terminal, the price of the container, pallet the bike is strapped to, etc. is all included in the price.

You might want to check out the cost of shipping by air before you go further along the 'crating' path. I suspect it would cost you about $2,000 CAD to ship one way Europe to Canada.

As for the ISPM-15 requirement for your wooden crate, I have no idea how you will be able to comply with that, unless you can find a lumber yard nearby that stocks wood marked with that certification standard.

Finally, a couple of lessons from the "school of hard knocks" that I learned long ago, first time I shipped my Canadian bike back to Canada:

1) Make sure the bike is clean enough that you could eat off of any part of it. In particular, make sure that there are no insect remains or dirt particle remains anywhere on the bike, including under the fenders, etc. Otherwise, Agriculture Canada may require that you get it steam cleaned before releasing it from customs.

2) Make photocopies of the Canadian registration (plate portion of the Ontario vehicle permit) and, if you have it, your original bill of sale from Canada. Attach these to the paperwork for the shipment. Attach similar copies to the seat of the bike itself (or outside of the container, if you crate it). This will help make clear to Canada Customs that the bike is "Canadian Goods Returning" and not a foreign vehicle that is being imported for the first time.

Be darn sure you have the original of the plate portion of your Ontario plate permit with you when you go to pick the bike up. Doesn't matter (for customs purposes) if the plate is current or not.

Michael

See also these prior discussions here on the HUBB about shipping into Canada:

Shipping bike from UK to Canada/America

Port & Destination Fees

Michael

Liz and I used pheonix air cargo to get our bikes to canada.

The crate was provided. The customs stuff at the Canadian end was awesomely simple.

This is a bit late but mught help others. I air freighted my bike from UK to Halifax earlier this year with James Cargo. It was amazing simple until I got to Canadian customs. I had only booked transport one-way for my R1200GSA, to them it looked like I was planning to sell it in Canada but they let it in in the end.

If you can, make sure you have evidence of plans for the bike once you're finished in Canada, like return freight booking.