Coffee, Tea & Spices
Nearly duty-free across the board. Safe Food for Canadians licensing is the real requirement — and freshness, not cost, is why premium-grade coffee and tea fly rather than sail.
Get a Coffee, Tea & Spices RateFree
MFN rate on most lines
3%
MFN rate, crushed/ground pepper (exception)
SFC Licence
Required for commercial food importers
HS 09
Tariff chapter
Safe Food for Canadians Requirement
Commercial food importers need a Safe Food for Canadians licence, regardless of product category
Under the Safe Food for Canadians Act and Regulations, commercial importers of food products into Canada — including coffee, tea, and spices — generally need an SFC licence. Confirm your importer holds a current licence before booking rather than assuming a shelf-stable product is exempt.
Source: Safe Food for Canadians Act (S.C. 2012, c. 24); Safe Food for Canadians Regulations. Last verified July 2026.
Relevant HS Codes
| HS Code | Description | MFN | CPTPP | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0901.21.00 | Coffee, roasted, not decaffeinated | Free | Free | — |
| 0902.40.00 | Other black tea (fermented) and partly fermented tea | Free | Free | — |
| 0904.12.90 | Crushed or ground pepper (other than for processing) | 3% | Free | CPTPP savings opportunity |
| 0906.11.00 | Cinnamon (Cinnamomum zeylanicum), neither crushed nor ground | Free | Free | — |
| 0908.31.00 | Cardamoms, neither crushed nor ground | Free | Free | — |
| 0910.12.00 | Ginger, crushed or ground | Free | Free | — |
Source: https://www.cbsa-asfc.gc.ca/trade-commerce/tariff-tarif/2026/html/00/ch09-eng.html
CPTPP savings on this lane
0904.12.90
Crushed or ground pepper (other than for processing)
Canadian Import Process
Verify SFC licence
Confirm the Canadian importer holds a current Safe Food for Canadians licence before booking.
HS classification check
Verify the specific tariff item — most lines are Free, crushed/ground pepper for non-processing use is the confirmed exception.
Freshness handling
For premium/specialty grades, confirm packaging and transit timing protect flavour quality — the reason this ships by air at all.
CBSA examination
Goods clear a CBSA examination against the commercial invoice, HS classification, and SFC licence reference.
Customs release
Shipment released to the SFC-licensed importer.
Worked example
500kg of single-origin roasted coffee, Ho Chi Minh City to Toronto
A 500kg shipment of roasted coffee (HS 0901.21.00) needs to move from SGN to YYZ. The fastest confirmed routing on that pair today is Korean Air Cargo through ICN, at 1-2 business days.
Before booking, UAL confirms the Canadian importer's Safe Food for Canadians licence covers this product category. Roasted coffee is already Free at MFN, so no CPTPP claim applies — the entire value of air freight on this shipment is freshness, not duty savings, since a multi-week sea transit would meaningfully degrade the flavour profile a specialty roaster is paying for.
On arrival, the shipment clears CBSA against the commercial invoice, HS classification, and SFC licence reference. If this were standard commodity-grade bulk coffee rather than a premium specialty grade, sea freight would very likely be the more economical choice — we're not going to claim air freight makes sense for every coffee shipment on this corridor.
Why ship coffee, tea & spices through UAL
Honest about when air freight actually makes sense
We won't recommend air freight for bulk commodity-grade coffee or tea where sea freight is genuinely the better economics. This lane is for premium and specialty grades where freshness is the real driver.
SFC licensing checked before tender
We confirm the importer's Safe Food for Canadians licence covers the specific product before booking, the same rigor we apply on our seafood and fresh produce pages.
Routing chosen on merit
A specialty-grade shipment routes via whichever carrier has the transit time that protects flavour quality, not whichever is cheapest.
Frequently asked questions
Generally yes — commercial food importers into Canada need an SFC licence under the Safe Food for Canadians Act and Regulations, the same licensing framework covering our seafood and fresh produce commodities. This applies regardless of the specific food category; confirm your importer holds a current SFC licence before booking rather than assuming a shelf-stable product like ground spice is exempt.
Documentation & terms
Air Freight Documentation Checklist
The documents that travel with every shipment, plus the ones that only apply to specific commodities or lanes — know which is which before you book.
Read the full guideCoffee, Tea & Spices · 6 HS codes · CPTPP savings on 1 code
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