Extend the Protection of Your Existing Rulings to Your New Products
If you use one ruling to support your declarations for multiple products, or if your existing rulings are at risk from product redesigns or legislative changes, the Subsequent Rulings Program keeps your duty rates predictable, and your imports protected from reassessment.
Who Should Consider This Program
If you use one ruling to support your declarations for multiple products, or new products entering their portfolio.
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Importers who have been negatively impacted by a CBSA Trade Verification Review and want similar products protected before the next review.
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Importers whose existing rulings have become invalid (or will become invalid) due to product design changes, packaging changes, or legislative changes such as Customs Tariff updates.
Program Benefits
Cost Certainty
Your duty rates become more predictable before the goods arrive. No surprises in your landed cost calculations.
Predictability and Compliance
Every importer wants predictable landed costs and a strong compliance standing in the eyes of the government. Securing a ruling from CBSA delivers both—it locks in greater certainty around your landed costs while moving you one step closer to full compliance with each decision you obtain.
Visibility to Government Policy Changes
It requires the CBSA to modify the ruling before implementing any policy changes and prevents the CBSA from attempting to apply new policies retroactively.
That means you find out about classification policy shifts before they hit your shipments, letting you make proactive sourcing, purchase order, and margin decisions instead of reactive ones.
Minimal Impact on Your Team
For new or modified products, you provide us a list of product numbers and any relevant product information. Our team handles the rest: the technical ruling submission, the CBSA correspondence, and the documentation. Our reporting portal lets you monitor progress and ask questions on your schedule.
Where legislative changes could invalidate your existing rulings, we proactively analyze the impact and review next steps with you before the change takes effect.
Filing Frequency - You Choose
Select annual, quarterly, or monthly ruling filing cadence, or filing on a per-request basis. You can change the frequency as well.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. The CBSA administers the ruling program on a product-by-product basis. A change in materials, components, packaging, or marketing can invalidate the ruling for the modified product. Subsequent rulings extend the protection to those variants.
A one-off ruling protects one product at one point in time. Subsequent Rulings is a continuous service: as your product portfolio evolves, we file the necessary rulings to keep all relevant variants protected. It's the difference between buying one insurance policy and maintaining ongoing coverage.