Delivery Duty Paid Service: When Goods Arrive Cleared

The Core Difference: DDP Means Pre-Cleared Goods

When a shipment comes in under delivery duty paid terms, the seller has already paid the import duties, HST, and any applicable tariffs before the container gets handed to you. That's fundamentally different from DAP (delivered at place) or CIF (cost, insurance, freight) inbound, where your team coordinates the CBSA clearance and the buyer settles the duty bill later. Under DDP, the CBSA has already released the goods and the seller's customs broker has filed the Commercial Accounting Declaration (CAD). Your dock receives cleared cargo.

This is operationally significant. No goods sitting under CBSA hold while documentation shuffles. No warehouse cash flow tied up in duty payment. Your receiving crew doesn't touch customs paperwork. You take the shipment, log it in, and move it to your racking or consolidation area.

What Your Dock Actually Sees

A DDP container arrives with a release notice from the seller's customs broker. That release notice tells the port terminal that duties are paid and CBSA clearance is complete. The terminal releases the container for drayage pickup. The driver hauls it to your facility. You receive a copy of the CAD or the broker's release confirmation as part of the shipment documentation.

The key operational step: verify that release before you unload. Don't accept DDP cargo on verbal assurance. Pull the CAD documentation and confirm the CBSA release authority is on file. We've seen a handful of cases where the broker said the goods were cleared but the CBSA system showed a hold or an exam was still pending. That verification takes five minutes and saves a dock door if something fell through the cracks.

Once verified, DDP goods are your problem from a warehousing standpoint. You handle receiving, unloading, storage, and order fulfillment exactly like any other inbound. The difference is the duty risk has evaporated.

The Cost Structure You Need to Understand

DDP pricing from a shipper includes more than freight. When a shipper quotes you DDP, they're embedding several costs into that all-in price: the actual import duties (which vary by HS code and trade agreement), HST or GST on the landed cost, customs broker fees, and any CBSA exam costs if the container gets flagged. Duties alone can range from 0% to 30% or higher depending on the commodity; add HST on top of that, and a USD $50,000 shipment of electronics might see $8,000 to $10,000 in duties and taxes before the shipper even asks for drayage payment.

The shipper absorbs that cost in DDP terms. They quote a delivered price, and they live with whatever the CBSA assessment comes back as. If an exam happens, exam delays eat into their margin or their timeline commitment to you. If duties get reassessed post-entry, they deal with it. Your warehouse isn't paying any of that.

That's the advantage: cost clarity and cost shifting. You're not financing duties. You're not waiting for a duty reassessment that could take weeks. The shipper took that bet.

Exam Risk: It's the Shipper's Problem (Most of the Time)

CBSA exams occur on roughly 5 to 8 percent of containers entering Canada, depending on the commodity and the trader's history. Textiles and certain chemicals see higher exam rates. Electronics and machinery tend to be lower. If a DDP shipment gets flagged for examination, the timeline stretches: a standard desk clearance is 1 to 2 business days, but an exam adds another 2 to 5 days. During that exam, the container sits at the port terminal, and the shipper pays dwell charges—typically $50 to $100 per day per container at Port of Montreal terminals.

If your shipment is DDP, that dwell cost is the shipper's bill, not yours. Your warehouse doesn't sit on the goods. The drayage driver doesn't sit idle waiting for a gate release. You don't have to discount your dock-to-stock SLA because CBSA is running a detailed exam two hours away.

The flip side: if the shipment is DAP or CIF, the buyer's customs broker handles the clearance. If the buyer's broker is slow, your warehouse may be holding goods under bond, and your cash flow might be tighter. DDP eliminates that exposure for the warehouse operator.

FCL vs LCL: Why DDP Matters More for Full Containers

Full container loads (FCL) under DDP terms are straightforward. One shipper, one CAD, one CBSA release. The broker files it, CBSA clears it (or exams it), the terminal releases the container. Clean path.

Less-than-container-load (LCL) shipments under DDP are messier. If an LCL consolidator acts as the importer of record for a consolidated shipment, they file one CAD covering multiple shippers' goods. If a CBSA exam is triggered, exam delays hit the LCL provider's timeline. The LCL provider may then pass those delays (or costs) to the shippers whose cargo is in the container—including your DDP shipper. The risk allocation gets tangled in the LCL consolidator's terms of service.

Most of the inbound we see at FENGYE is FCL. For FCL DDP, exam risk is clear and stays with the shipper. For LCL DDP, you need to ask the shipper or the forwarder exactly who eats exam delays. It's usually in the fine print of the consolidator's quote.

How It Stacks Against DAP and CIF

Under DAP (delivered at place), the seller pays freight to your warehouse, but you—or your principal's customs broker—clear the goods and pay duties. The shipper's exposure ends at delivery to your dock. If duties are higher than expected, the buyer absorbs that surprise. If CBSA exams and holds the container, the buyer's cash flow is tied up. It's operationally clean for the shipper but requires coordination on your side.

CIF (cost, insurance, freight) is similar to DAP from a duty perspective, except the shipper also insures the goods to your destination port. Still your job to clear customs and pay duties at your end.

DDP flips that. No duty surprises. No customs clearance coordination between your team and a broker. No cash flow financing goods through a CBSA hold. The trade-off is the shipper's pricing power—DDP prices are higher because they include all duty and tax risk and all exam risk. But for warehouse operations, DDP is the simplest intake model. You're not managing CBSA paperwork. You're not funding duties. You're not timing inventory receipt around customs holds.

Documentation: Verify, Keep, Move On

The one operational rigor DDP demands: verify the CBSA release before unloading. Request the broker's release notice or a copy of the CAD filing confirmation. It takes a phone call to the broker or a check of the shipper's email trail, and it costs nothing. We log the CAD number or release reference in our receiving system for audit purposes. If CBSA ever audits a shipment post-entry and asks for warehouse records, we have the documentation trail clean.

Keep those CAD copies with your inbound logistics file for that shipment. If duties get reassessed by CBSA months later, the shipper may request warehouse records to support their appeal. Your documentation keeps you out of the dispute.

Once received and verified, treat DDP goods like any other cleared cargo. Standard handling, standard storage rates, standard order fulfillment. FENGYE's in-bond cargo handling workflow doesn't differ based on whether goods arrived DDP or DAP—the DDP goods just skip the customs clearance phase.

Cash Flow Reality

For a 3PL warehouse, DDP inbound is straightforward cash flow. Goods arrive cleared. You receive them. You invoice the customer for receiving, storage, and handling at your published rates—no duties, no surcharges, no customs surprises. You get paid for warehousing. The shipper got paid (or will get paid) when the shipment was ordered, and they absorbed the DDP cost.

This is cleaner than DAP scenarios where goods sometimes sit under bond, and you're not sure whether the buyer is going to clear them immediately or negotiate duty amounts with CBSA. Under DDP, that ambiguity is gone. The buyer has already committed to the landed cost, and the seller has already settled it with CBSA.

The only cash flow complication is if goods are damaged or missing and you need to document a claim. Damage claims on DDP goods go back to the shipper, not your warehouse (unless your handling caused the damage). Keep your receiving inspection photos and damage reports tight, because the shipper may use them to file a claim against their freight insurer.

When DDP Doesn't Make Sense

For very high-value or high-risk commodities—textiles, certain chemicals, counterfeit-prone goods—the buyer may want to control the customs strategy themselves. DDP means the shipper chose the tariff classification and the trade agreement benefit. If the buyer's compliance team has a specific tariff strategy (claiming USMCA origin, for example, to reduce duty), DDP removes that control from the buyer. The shipper's broker made those choices, and they're locked in once the CAD is filed.

For imports under examination or subject to safeguards or anti-dumping investigations, the buyer may also prefer DAP, so they can coordinate with their own broker on the customs strategy. DDP is shipper-friendly, not buyer-friendly, from a tariff optimization standpoint.

But from a warehouse operations perspective, DDP is always simpler. You're not the one managing the tariff risk or the exam risk. You're just receiving cleared goods and processing them.

Related: How Montreal Port Growth Reshapes Your Warehouse Dock Timing

Related: Sufferance Warehouse Guide: Operations and Compliance

Related: Cargo handling comparison: In-bond vs. standard warehouse...

The Bottom Line for Your Dock

Delivery duty paid service means your warehouse takes on zero customs risk and zero duty financing. Goods arrive cleared, and you handle the storage and fulfillment. Verify the release, log the CAD reference, and move the shipment into your standard workflow. It's the cleanest intake model a 3PL can receive. If your inbound profile is mostly DDP, you're not carrying customs risk on your balance sheet, and that's a material operational advantage. Talk to us if your DDP volumes are growing—we manage the intake and documentation verification, and you focus on scaling the fulfillment side.