Guide
The CBSA system that changed how every Canadian importer manages duty and tax accounts.
CARM (the CBSA Assessment and Revenue Management project) is the Canada Border Services Agency's modernised system for managing commercial importer accounts, duty, and tax. Its second release went fully live in May 2024, and the practical effect for carriers is simple: every commercial importer into Canada must now have their own CARM Client Portal (CCP) account, their own payment arrangement with CBSA, and in most cases their own financial security — they can no longer ride on their broker's bond. If you haul Canada-bound freight, you need to know what CARM means for your shippers because it affects your loads.
CARM replaces the old patchwork of CBSA account systems — CADEX, Accounts Receivable Ledger, B3 entry — with a single online portal where importers can see their statement of account, pay duty and tax, post security, delegate authority to brokers, and manage trade-compliance cases.
Behind the portal is a ledger-based accounting system that treats every importer as a direct CBSA client. In the pre-CARM world, most small importers relied on their broker's bond to cover duty and tax between entry and payment. In the CARM world, the importer is the primary relationship — they need to be registered, they need to be able to pay, and they usually need their own financial security.
You do not register in CARM as a carrier — CARM is an importer programme, not a carrier programme. What changes for you is on the shipper side.
If your shipper has not set up their CARM account, has not delegated authority to their broker, or has not posted security under the Release Prior to Payment (RPP) programme, the entry can sit in limbo. That becomes your problem at the crossing — the broker cannot release the cargo, and you wait. Asking the shipper for their CARM status before the pickup is now a normal part of dispatch due-diligence for regular lanes.
RPP is the mechanism that lets cargo cross before duty and tax are actually paid. Under pre-CARM rules, the broker's bond usually satisfied RPP. Under CARM, importers must post their own financial security — either a surety bond through an approved surety provider, or cash collateral held with CBSA.
Small and occasional importers sometimes skip RPP entirely and pre-pay duty and tax before release. For regular-lane freight, RPP registration on the importer side is effectively mandatory to keep freight moving.
The most frequent CARM-era issue at the crossing is delegation of authority. Importers must actively delegate their broker in CCP before the broker can file entries on their behalf. This is a one-time setup per importer-broker pair, but many new shippers discover the gap only when a load is already at the border.
The second common issue is GST/HST registration. Every CARM importer needs a BN9 business number with an RM import-export program account; shippers who have historically imported through a US-Canada-goods forwarder may not have their own.
BorderPro does not file your shippers' CARM entries — that's the broker's job. What we do is surface broker RNS status alongside your eManifest in one dashboard, so when a CARM-related hold happens on the broker side, you see it on your dispatch screen instead of hearing about it from the driver at the plaza.
BorderPro's CARM-aware workflow flags Canada-bound loads where the broker cargo feed shows a 'not matched' RNS after reasonable time, and alerts dispatch so the shipper or broker can be contacted before the driver arrives.
No — CARM is an importer programme. Carriers do not have a direct role in CARM registration. The programme affects you indirectly through shipper readiness: if your shipper is not CARM-compliant, their loads will not clear promptly.
CCP is the public-facing portal that sits on top of CARM. When people say "register in CARM" they usually mean "set up a CCP account and link it to the importer's business number." The backend accounting system is CARM itself.
Their entries cannot be released under RPP. In practice, the broker will try to front duty and tax themselves (less likely post-CARM), pre-pay on the shipper's behalf, or hold the shipment until the CARM gap is resolved — all of which delay the crossing.
No. CARM is Canada-only — it covers goods imported into Canada. US imports are governed by CBP and ACE, unaffected by CARM.
Written for operational context by the BorderPro team. Not legal or customs-compliance advice — verify program specifics with CBSA, CBP, or a licensed customs broker before acting on them. Programs evolve and this page may not reflect every recent change.
BorderPro files ACE and ACI eManifests, tracks PARS/PAPS, and surfaces broker RNS — in one dashboard.