Covered goods · Fasteners
The 25% surtax hiding inside your fastener invoices
Importers of screws, bolts, nuts, washers, threaded rod, anchors, rivets, and nails have been paying a 25% Canadian surtax since late 2025. Published remission orders exist to recover those payments. Most fastener importers have never filed. You keep 100% of every dollar recovered.
If we find nothing, it costs you nothing.
A 15-minute call with the founder, then a free scan of a transaction report from your own CARM portal that shows the surtax you paid and the range that looks recoverable, before you pay anything. Fees start at $2,495 CAD, backed by the 5x guarantee.
Every qualifying entry, its order, its authority code. Ready to file.
| Entry | Order cited | Recoverable |
|---|---|---|
| 14782-031 | SOR/2026-34 | $31,500 |
| 14782-117 | SOR/2025-122 | $18,240 |
| 14783-009 | K32 drawback | $9,615 |
| every qualifying entry, line by line | … | |
| Identified (illustrative) | $100,000 | |
The free look shows what you paid and the recoverable range. This shows every entry, its order, and its code, the part that gets filed. Illustrative sample.
Surtax coverage figure: Department of Finance Canada
The covered goods
Do you import any of these?
Fastener imports touch nearly every industrial, construction, and consumer product supply chain. The surtax exposure compounds across high-frequency, high-SKU-count shipments, and it has been accumulating since December 26, 2025.
Screws, bolts, nuts & washers
- Wood screws, machine screws, and self-tapping screws
- Bolts, studs, and threaded rod
- Nuts (hex, lock, wing, flange)
- Washers (flat, spring, lock)
- Anchors, rivets, and nail products
- Staples and similar steel fastening goods
Often on the same containers
The detail
Why fastener importers are holding unclaimed refunds
Screws, bolts, nuts, washers, threaded rod, anchors, and rivets are among the steel derivative goods captured by SOR/2025-267, the Steel Derivative Goods Surtax Order, which came into force on December 26, 2025. At 25% of the customs value, the surtax appears on every Commercial Accounting Declaration as a separate duty line, stacked on top of any existing Most-Favoured-Nation rates. For importers sourcing from Taiwan, China, India, or anywhere outside the United States, this order, not the earlier US-origin steel surtax, is the relevant authority.
The refund mechanism is SOR/2026-34, the Steel Derivative Goods Surtax Remission Order. A qualifying importer corrects past entries in CARM by citing the appropriate special authority code on the amended Commercial Accounting Declaration. Without that code, the surtax stands as assessed; CBSA has no obligation to initiate a refund on your behalf.
The practical obstacle for fastener importers is volume. A mid-sized distributor may clear hundreds of entries per year, each carrying dozens of line items across commodity classifications. Calculating exposure and preparing filing-ready adjustments is not a one-afternoon project. Most accounts payable teams treat the surtax as a cost of goods and move on. The two-year claim window is statutory: entries from December 2025 begin expiring in December 2027, and a month of recoverable surtax closes permanently every month after that.
Every regulation above links to its official Government of Canada page. Don’t take our word for any of it.
Your exposure
How much surtax are you sitting on?
Drag to your rough annual import of covered goods. The surtax is 25% of that value, so the arithmetic is simple. Illustrative, not a quote. Your real number comes from your entries.
Two years of it is still claimable, and a portion is recoverable. The free look shows you how much.
See if you’re owedThe math
What the money looks like
A typical $2M a year of fastener surtax, worked all the way through. Illustrative, on the Standard tier.
That money isn’t hypothetical. It’s surtax you already paid, sitting on the government’s side of the ledger. Refunds arrive as credits or payments on your CBSA account, applied first against anything you owe CBSA. The only question is whether it gets claimed before the window closes.
Under the old industry model, a 25% contingency, that same recovery would have cost you $25,000. Our fee is flat and published, so the math stays this lopsided at every volume. See the full pricing and the 5x guarantee.
Your real number comes from your real entries.
See if you’re owedThe deadline
The window is closing. For real, not as a sales line.
Refund claims must be made within two years of each importation. The surtax started in March 2025, which means your earliest entries become unclaimable in early 2027. After that, another month of refunds expires every month, permanently. There’s no countdown clock on this page because the statute doesn’t need one.
And if the tariffs get lifted in a trade deal? Past overpayments remain refundable within the two-year window. A deal stops future surtax; it doesn’t return what you already paid.
Your oldest entries expire first. From early 2027, another month of refunds becomes unclaimable every month.
Start before they doThe process
How it works
Four steps. The first is free: you see your number before you commit a dollar, and the 5x guarantee covers the rest. You never need to understand CARM, CADs, or authority codes. Day markers are typical, not promises.
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1
Free
The free look
Day 0 to 3A 15-minute call, then we read a transaction report you pull from your own CARM portal. You see the surtax you’ve paid on covered entries and the range that looks recoverable, the size of the prize. The how (which orders, which codes, how to file) is the work, and it starts at the audit. No account access, no NDA, no fee. New to the portal? Our CARM guide walks you through it.
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2
The recovery audit
Day 3 to 10The work the free look can’t do. We examine all 24 months entry by entry and decide which federal program recovers each one. A wrong code, or an entry that doesn’t truly qualify, bounces the whole claim. Knowing which is which is what you’re paying for. You engage at half the fee; we sign an NDA and you delegate read-only CARM access.
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3
The filing-ready package
Day 10 to 20Not a report of what you might be owed. The instrument that gets it back: the exact authority code for every qualifying entry, prepared K32s, documentary support, ready to transmit. Hand it to your broker or self-file in CARM and it pays out. White Glove: we coordinate it for you.
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4
Money in your account
Day 90 to 120The point of all of it. Refunds post to your CBSA account, with interest if CBSA runs late. Your broker files, or you self-file. You stay in control the whole way.
The 5x guarantee. If the audit doesn’t identify at least 5x our fee in recoverable surtax, your half-payment comes back in full and you keep the findings. The free look already cost you nothing.
Questions
Questions about screws, bolts, nuts & washers refunds
My fasteners come from Taiwan and India, not the United States. Does the surtax still apply?
Yes. The Steel Derivative Goods Surtax Order (SOR/2025-267) applies to covered goods from every country of origin, not only the United States. The US-origin steel and aluminum surtax (SOR/2025-95, in force March 2025) is a separate, earlier order. Most fastener importers sourcing outside the US are caught by SOR/2025-267, which started December 26, 2025, and the corresponding remission order is SOR/2026-34.
We import under hundreds of SKUs across many shipments each year. How does FlatClaim handle that volume?
Volume is exactly the problem FlatClaim is built to solve. The first step is a read-only review of the transaction report you pull from your own CARM portal. That report shows every entry, duty line, and assessed amount. FlatClaim maps the surtax exposure across all of them and returns a recoverable range before any fee is paid. The paid audit then produces a filing-ready package for each qualifying entry, regardless of how many there are.
What does ‘filing-ready’ mean, and who actually transmits the claim to CBSA?
FlatClaim prepares the corrected Commercial Accounting Declaration for each qualifying entry, with the appropriate special authority code and supporting calculations. Because FlatClaim is not a licensed customs broker, the amended declarations are transmitted to CBSA either by your existing customs broker or by you directly through CARM. White Glove tier clients receive broker coordination as part of the service.
Is there a deadline we are working against?
There is a statutory two-year claim window measured from each individual importation date. Fastener entries from December 2025 begin expiring in December 2027, and an additional month of recoverable surtax closes permanently each month after that. There is no administrative extension. The urgency is the statute, not a promotional offer.
More in plain-English answers and the main FAQ.
Book a free first look at your fastener entries
Send Jon what you import and he’ll come back with a straight read on your tier, your likely exposure, and whether the numbers clear the 5x bar for your volume. That’s the founder replying, not an SDR or a call centre. The first look is free, with no account access and no fee.
or, if you’re ready now
Prefer email? jon@flatclaim.com