Certain Canadian Goods Are Banned From Import on September 29. Arrival Decides, Not Entry

Three proclamations move alcoholic beverages, dairy and motor vehicles from a 50% duty to an outright import ban. Goods that arrive before 12:01 a.m. ET on September 29 can still be entered at 50%. Goods that arrive after cannot come in at all. Updated October 13 with CBP's implementing guidance: the ban also closes the FTZ and bonded-warehouse routes, and entries are rejected outright.

On September 8, 2026 the President signed three proclamations under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 — 11061 (alcoholic beverages), 11062 (dairy) and 11063 (motor vehicles). They were published on September 14 (91 FR 58311, 58319 and 58325). Each does the same thing: it takes products of Canada that are currently subject to the 50% Section 338 duties and excludes them from importation into the United States.

This is a different instrument from a tariff. Section 338 lets the President impose additional duties up to 50% — that is what happened in July and August. It also authorizes excluding a country's articles from importation altogether if that country "maintains or increases" the discrimination. That second power is rarely used. It is the one now being exercised.

The date that counts is arrival, not entry

Read the two operative paragraphs together, because they do not use the same word:

• The exclusion is effective with respect to goods imported on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern time on September 29, 2026.
• Products subject to the ban that were imported, but not yet entered for consumption or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, before September 29 remain subject to the 50% duty instead.

So the test is importation — arrival — not the entry filing. A container of covered goods that lands on September 26 and clears on October 3 is still a 50% duty shipment. The same container landing on September 30 is not admissible at any price. If you have covered cargo on the water, the question to ask your carrier this week is the arrival date, and whether it has slipped.

What is covered, and how CBP is enforcing it

Each proclamation carries its own Annex listing the tariff lines. One practical caution: the Federal Register prints those annexes as images, so they are not searchable in the text version — work from the PDF or from CBP's attachments.

Update, October 13. When this piece was first published on September 18, CBP had issued no guidance and the filing mechanics were unknown. It published two messages on September 28, the day before the ban took effect, and they answer the two questions this article had left open.

The ban is wider than "cannot be entered." Exclusion from importation also precludes admission into a foreign trade zone, entry into a bonded warehouse, and in-bond transportation — not only entry for consumption. The usual ways of parking goods at the border while a problem is sorted out are closed along with the front door.

Entries are rejected outright, and there are error codes for it. From 12:01 a.m. ET on September 29, any entry containing covered products is unconditionally rejected. CBP added two codes, both reading HTS NOT ALLOWED FOR COUNTRY OF ORIGIN: 239 for e214 foreign-trade-zone admissions and 335 for ACE Cargo Release. If your broker reports one of those on a Canadian shipment, that is this rule, not a data error.

Goods that beat the clock keep their way out — including goods already in a zone. Covered products imported before the cutoff remain eligible to be entered for consumption. And products that were already in a bonded warehouse or admitted into an FTZ before the ban took effect may still be withdrawn for consumption at the 50% duty. The arrival-date rule this article is built around held up exactly as written.

The affected headings are worth reading literally. CBP names HTSUS headings 0404, 1702, 1703, 2202, 2203, 2204, 2205, 2206, 2207, 2208 and 8711, and describes the alcohol as that packed in bottles, cans, boxes, kegs or similar direct-to-consumption containers. Note 8711 — motorcycles. The proclamation filed as the motor vehicle action reaches there. Read the tariff numbers, not the sector names.

Separately, the duty list itself grew on September 15

Two more proclamations signed the same day — 11064 and 11065 — modified which Canadian products carry the 50% duty, effective September 15, 2026. CBP's guidance (CSMS #69851916) puts it at 122 additional tariff classifications under HTSUS 9903.03.12 and 9903.03.14; the classifications under 9903.03.13 did not change.

The official list attached to that message now runs to roughly 1,230 tariff lines, and the additions marked on it are not where the headlines have been. The largest block by far is furniture and lighting — 36 lines. Then dairy (24), base-metal fittings and mountings (14), paper and paperboard (10) and aluminum (9), with smaller groups in furskins, boats, leather, iron and steel articles, vehicles, and fats and oils. If you import Canadian furniture, that is the sentence that matters to you.

Ten classifications came off the list on the same date. Check these against your own filings rather than against a sector label:

• From 9903.03.12: 2208.30.60, 2208.70.00 (liqueurs and cordials)
• From 9903.03.14: 2501.00.00, 2523.29.00, 2940.00.60, 4803.00.40, 4818.90.00, 7801.10.00, 8537.10.91, 9507.10.00 (fishing rods)

If the ban is struck down, the duty comes back

Each proclamation carries a severability clause that says so explicitly: if the import ban is invalidated as to any import, the 50% duty imposed by the original proclamation applies to that import instead. A successful challenge would not produce duty-free entry. Plan on one of two outcomes, not three.

What to do in the next eleven days

Check your tariff numbers against the annexes, not the sector names. "Dairy" and "motor vehicles" are headlines; the annex is the rule. The same caution applied to the July proclamations, where the one filed as the motor vehicle action turned out to cover agricultural goods, leather, textiles and machinery.

Get the arrival dates for anything already moving. Not the ETA you were given at booking — the current one. A few days of slippage is the whole difference between a 50% duty and cargo that cannot enter.

Decide early what happens to goods that miss the date. Re-export, sale into another market, or storage abroad are decisions with lead times of their own, and they are easier to arrange before a vessel arrives than after.

We arrange clearance into both the United States and Canada. Send us the container and the tariff numbers and we will check them against the covered lists, tell you the current arrival date, and flag anything that is close to the line. Contact us.