Running a Company Swag Store for a Canadian Team: Borders, Taxes, French and Who Pays

The demo always looks great. A clean storefront, your logo on everything, a hoodie your team will actually want.

Then the first orders go out to Calgary, Halifax and Montréal. Some arrive with taxes to pay at the door. One sits in customs for a week. Someone in Quebec asks why the whole store is in English. And finance wants to know whether the swag allowance is a taxable benefit.

None of that shows up in the demo. All of it shows up for a Canadian team. Here's what to get right before you launch a company store, so your people just order.

Start with where it ships from

This is the decision that drives everything else, and it's the one most teams don't think to ask about.

If your store ships from the US, every order is an import. For courier shipments from the US, the Canada Border Services Agency's low-value shipment rules work like this:

• Up to $40: no duty and no tax.
• $40 to $150: no duty, but GST or HST applies.
• Over $150: duty and tax both apply.

A single hoodie can clear $40 on its own. And splitting an order into several parcels to stay under the limit isn't allowed.

There's a newer wrinkle. Since September 8, 2026, Canada has charged a surtax on a range of US-made goods, with clothing at 50%. It's based on where a product is made, not where it ships from, and the CBSA has confirmed it applies even to small parcels under the thresholds above. Most blank promotional apparel isn't made in the US, so this won't touch every item. But it's exactly the kind of cost that lands on an employee's doorstep with no warning.

The simple fix: for a Canadian team, hold the stock in Canada and ship it from Canada. No border on the way to your people, no surprise charges at the door, and faster delivery.

If you have people in both countries, the store can still be one store. It just needs stock on both sides, or a clear rule about who covers cross-border costs.

Price it in Canadian dollars, with the right tax

Sales tax in Canada depends on where the order is going, not where your company is. A few examples:

• Ontario: 13% HST
• Quebec: 5% GST plus 9.975% QST
• Alberta: 5% GST
• British Columbia: 5% GST plus 7% PST
• Nova Scotia: 14% HST

A store that charges one flat rate is getting it wrong somewhere. The CRA has the full rate table by province.

And show prices in Canadian dollars. Asking people to guess the exchange rate on a $68 quarter-zip is a small thing that makes the whole store feel like it wasn't built for them.

Decide who pays, and check what the CRA thinks

Most company stores run on one of three models, or a mix:

The employee pays. Simple and clean. The CRA's guidance on employee discounts says a discount generally isn't a taxable benefit as long as the employee pays at least what it cost you.

The company gives an allowance or credits. Popular, and the one to check. The CRA lets you give employees up to $500 a year in non-cash gifts and awards tax-free, for special occasions, and small items of trivial value such as T-shirts and mugs don't count toward that limit. But the CRA doesn't say anything specific about store credits or swag allowances. Before you launch one, ask your accountant how it should be treated.

Departments pay with a budget code. Sales orders for a client event, HR orders for onboarding. The store becomes the ordering system, and nobody emails a spreadsheet of sizes again.

One more: if the gear is a distinctive uniform people are required to wear to do their job, the CRA's uniform rules generally treat it as non-taxable. Regular clothing people can wear on the weekend doesn't qualify.

This is a plain-English summary, not tax advice. But it's worth sorting out before launch rather than at year-end.

If part of your team is in Quebec, build it in French

The Quebec government's language office says a website a business uses to sell to people in Quebec must be available in French, with French at least as prominent as any other language. Separately, Quebec employers have to use French in written communications to their staff.

No one has ruled specifically on employee-only swag stores. Our advice is simple: if any of your people are in Quebec, launch the store in French and English from day one. Product names, sizing notes, order confirmations and the packing slip in the box. It's much easier to build in than to bolt on.

Keep it fresh, and keep the stock lean

The fastest way to kill a company store is to launch it and never touch it. If it looks the same in December as it did in March, people stop visiting.

Plan for a seasonal drop or two a year, even if it's just a new colourway and one new piece. And decide early which items you'll hold in stock and which you'll make on demand. Holding stock is fast and cheap per unit. Holding the wrong stock is how stores end up with forty XXL hoodies nobody wants. That decision, more than any other, decides whether a store pays for itself.

Already have a closet full of swag from past events? Don't let it sit there. Ship it to us. We'll count it, sort it, tell you straight what's worth keeping, and put the good stuff in the store.

Where to start

Before you look at a single storefront, answer four questions:

1. Who orders? Everyone, new hires only, or specific teams?
2. Who pays? The employee, an allowance, or a department?
3. Where are your people? Which provinces, and is anyone in Quebec or the US?
4. What's already sitting in the closet?

Send us those answers in the short form below and we'll come back within 48 hours with three ways your store could work, from simple to full-service. More on how we build and run them on our company stores page.