What It Really Costs to Bring Italian Coffee to Canada: One Importer's Freight Bill, Line by Line

By Maysam Tehrani, founder, Lusso Scelta

One shipment of Italian coffee, Genoa to our warehouse door in Vancouver, cost CA$9,639.44 to move. That figure comes from a single freight invoice dated February 2025, and every line of it is below. We are publishing it because almost everything written about why Italian coffee costs what it does in Canada is guessed, and the guesses are usually wrong in the same direction: people assume the border is expensive and the ocean is cheap. The invoice says the opposite.

The shipment was 25 cubic metres and 4,538 kg gross, a mix of coffee, porcelain cups and hot chocolate, moving by sea from Genoa to Montreal and then by rail and truck across the country. Here is where the money went.

The invoice, line by line

*Allocated by gross weight: CA$9,639.44 over 4,538 kg is CA$2.12 per kilo shipped; a 1 kg bag in its case weighs about 1.08 kg, so about CA$2.30 to land one bag. The invoice also carried CA$171.43 of GST, charged on the taxable non-coffee goods in the same shipment (tableware), not on the coffee.

Three things in that table surprise almost everyone we show it to.

1. For coffee, the Canadian border costs nothing

Not a reduced rate. Nothing. Roasted coffee enters Canada free of duty under tariff item 0901.21, and because coffee beans are a zero-rated basic grocery under the Excise Tax Act, no GST is collected at import either (the Canada Revenue Agency lists coffee beans by name in its basic groceries memorandum). The only border cost on the whole shipment was the CA$75 clearance fee, less than the retail price of two bags.

The "import tax" that people assume is baked into the price of a kilo of Italian espresso does not exist for the coffee itself. Whatever makes Italian coffee more expensive in Canada than in Italy, it is not the government.

2. Crossing Canada cost 72 percent of crossing the Atlantic

Genoa to Montreal by sea, roughly 6,500 km, cost CA$4,427.50. Montreal to Vancouver by rail and truck, roughly 4,800 km, cost CA$3,200 including the tailgate. The domestic leg was 72 percent of the ocean leg.

This is the part of the bill that geography decides. An importer in Toronto or Montreal pays the ocean and stops. An importer in Vancouver pays the ocean and then pays again to cross the country, because routing a European shipment through the Panama Canal to the west coast is slower and, for small volumes, no cheaper. It is why "same product, higher price in BC" is often simply true.

3. The last few kilometres cost more than the first 9,000

Landing one kilo bag at the warehouse, Italy to Vancouver, cost about CA$2.30. Sending that same bag from the warehouse to a customer in Toronto costs us about CA$10 with a national courier. The final delivery is more than four times the entire international journey.

That is the real structure of e-commerce coffee pricing in a country this size. Ocean freight is efficient because it is shared across tonnes of cargo. A single parcel is not shared with anyone. It is also why the free-shipping threshold exists on most Canadian coffee sites: below a certain order value the courier bill alone can exceed what the importer made on the bag.

Then there is the euro

Every line on the Italian side of the chain, including the coffee itself, is paid in euros. The Bank of Canada's annual average for the euro was CA$1.37 in 2022; on October 22, 2026 it closed at CA$1.57. That is a 14.8 percent increase in the Canadian cost of anything priced in euros, before a single bean moves.

For a reader, the point is simple: a kilo of Italian coffee that has held the same Canadian price since 2022 has quietly absorbed a 15 percent currency increase, and one that has gone up by less than that has not kept pace with its own cost.

Why the supermarket "Italian" bag is cheaper

Walk into a Canadian grocery store and there are 1 kg bags with Italian names at prices that no importer paying the bill above can match. Two reasons, both legitimate, neither a secret.

Volume: a national brand ships full containers, not 25 cubic metres, and its ocean cost per kilo is a fraction of ours.

Roasting location: a surprising share of the "Italian" coffee on Canadian shelves is roasted in North America under an Italian-sounding name, or roasted from green beans that never passed through Italy. The label is where to look: "Roasted in Italy" or "Prodotto in Italia" with a named town means the bag made the journey in the table above. If the packaging does not say where it was roasted, assume it was not Italy.

For comparison, captured on October 23, 2026: 1 kg bags of 100 percent Arabica espresso from major national Italian brands were listed on a large Italian online retailer at EUR 25.00 to 36.65, which is CA$39 to CA$58 at the Bank of Canada rate on that day. Canadian retailers were listing 1 kg bags roasted in Italy at CA$29.99 to CA$35.99 for mid-market brands. A premium Italian roaster's kilo sits above both ranges in both countries; the gap between Italy and Canada for the same bag is usually smaller than people expect once the euro is accounted for.

What this means if you buy Italian coffee in Canada

Buy a kilo, not 250 g. The international freight on a bag is about CA$2.30 whether the bag holds a kilo or a quarter of it, and the courier charge is per parcel. Four small bags carry four times the overhead.

Buy from an importer, not a reseller. An importer paid the invoice above once. A marketplace reseller bought from an importer and added a margin on top of the same freight.

Check "roasted in Italy." It is the one line on the bag that tells you which journey the coffee actually made.

If you want to see how an importer describes its own blends in those terms, our Italian espresso beans are listed with roast, body and what each is for.

Methodology

Freight figures are from one forwarder's invoice for a shipment that left Genoa on January 3, 2025 and arrived in Montreal on January 28, 2025, then moved by rail and truck to Vancouver: 25 cbm, 4,538 kg gross, mixed cargo. Per-kilo and per-bag figures are allocated by gross weight; a 1 kg bag in a six-bag case is taken as 1.08 kg gross. The courier figure is our typical cost for one 1 kg bag from Vancouver to Toronto with a national carrier. Duty status is from the Canadian customs tariff (0901.21, roasted, not decaffeinated); GST status from CRA GST/HST Memorandum 4.3, Basic Groceries. Exchange rates are Bank of Canada: annual average 2022 (1.3696) and the daily rate for October 22, 2026 (1.5719). Comparison prices were captured on October 23, 2026 from public retailer listings. The supplier's price to us, and our margin, are not disclosed and are not needed for any figure above. No freight forwarder, courier, broker or supplier is named.

Questions people ask

Is there duty on coffee imported into Canada?
No. Roasted coffee (tariff item 0901.21) enters Canada duty-free from any origin. Green coffee is also duty-free. The only border charge on a shipment of coffee is the customs broker's fee, typically under CA$100.

Is there GST on imported coffee?
No. Coffee beans and ground coffee are zero-rated basic groceries, so no GST is charged at import or at the till. GST does apply to other goods in the same shipment, such as cups.

How much does it cost to ship coffee from Italy to Canada?
On our January 2025 shipment, about CA$2.12 per kilo shipped, door to door from Genoa to Vancouver, or about CA$2.30 for one 1 kg bag. Roughly half of that was the ocean, a third was crossing Canada by rail, and the rest was handling at each end.

Why is Italian coffee more expensive in Canada than in Italy?
Mostly the euro and the distance, not tax. The euro has risen about 15 percent against the Canadian dollar since 2022, ocean freight for small importers is paid per cubic metre, and shipping across Canada can cost nearly as much as crossing the Atlantic. The border itself adds almost nothing.