Provisional Duties on Wheat Gluten from Italy, Poland, and the UK

CBSA Made the Call

CBSA issued a preliminary determination of dumping on September 17, 2026 for wheat gluten originating in or exported from Italy, Poland, and the United Kingdom. The investigation (WG2 2026 IN) moves to provisional duty collection immediately, and the final determination clock is running.

If you import wheat gluten from any of these three countries, your customs filings changed that day. Provisional duties apply to every CAD filed for subject goods released on or after the preliminary determination date, regardless of when the shipment was purchased or when it left the supplier’s dock. The duty line on your CARM Statement of Account will reflect both the regular tariff and the provisional anti-dumping margin until CBSA issues a final determination or the Canadian International Trade Tribunal closes the case.

What Changes on the CAD

Provisional duty is not a tariff adjustment. It sits as a separate line on the CAD under SIMA, calculated as a percentage of the Normal Value (NRM) assigned to the exporter or, if no exporter-specific rate was published, the country-wide rate. The CBSA case page lists the provisional margins by exporter and country. Check your supplier’s name against that table before your broker files. Filing the wrong margin is an underpayment, and AMPS penalties for SIMA errors are not forgiving.

Value for duty is still transaction value adjusted under Customs Act section 48. The SIMA margin applies to the normal value comparison, not your invoice price, unless your supplier is selling below normal value and triggering the dumping finding in the first place. Your broker should be running that calculation on every shipment. If they are not, or if you are filing your own CADs as an NRI, this is the time to confirm the math.

Cash Flow Under CARM

Provisional duties are due on release under the CARM payment rules, just like regular customs duties and GST. If you are operating under Release Prior to Payment with an RPP bond, CBSA will draw against your financial security for the provisional amount on every release. Your Statement of Account will show the provisional duty line aggregated with all other charges for the monthly billing period.

The bonding implication: your RPP bond calculation now includes an additional duty line you were not carrying before September 17. If your wheat gluten import volume is significant, your broker or your surety may flag the bond as under-secured and ask for an increase. Run the numbers before CBSA does. A bond call in the middle of a SIMA case is not the time to discover you have been under-reserved.

Provisional duties are refundable if the final determination goes the other way or if the Tribunal finds no material injury. But the refund process is not automatic. You file for it under section 74 of the Customs Act after the case closes, and the four-year limitation period runs from the date you paid, not the date of the final determination. If you are importing volume, track every CAD number and every provisional duty payment now. Reassembling that record eighteen months later when the case closes is harder than it sounds.

Timeline to Final Determination

CBSA has 90 days from the preliminary determination to issue a final determination of dumping. That puts the final decision window in mid-December 2026, although extensions are possible if the investigation hits complexity or if exporters request it. The final determination will either confirm dumping, adjust the margins, or terminate the investigation.

If CBSA confirms dumping at final, the case moves to the Canadian International Trade Tribunal for the injury phase. The Tribunal has 120 days from the final determination to decide whether the dumped imports caused material injury to the Canadian wheat gluten industry. If the Tribunal finds injury, anti-dumping duties become permanent and continue until a review changes them or the case sunsets. If the Tribunal finds no injury, the case closes and provisional duties are refunded.

That is a six-to-nine-month window from now to a final outcome. In the meantime, every CAD you file for wheat gluten from Italy, Poland, or the UK carries the provisional rate, and your cash flow absorbs it on release.

What to Do If You Import Wheat Gluten

First, confirm your supplier’s country of origin and whether your product is in scope. Wheat gluten is HS 1109.00, but the case definition in the preliminary determination will specify exactly what is covered and what is excluded. Read the full Statement of Reasons on the CBSA SIMA page before assuming your product is subject. If your supplier manufactures in one of the three named countries but sources the underlying wheat from somewhere else, that does not exempt you. Origin under SIMA is where the goods are exported from, not where the raw material originated.

Second, if you have wheat gluten shipments in transit or sitting at a Canadian port awaiting release, check the cargo control date and the anticipated release date against September 17, 2026. Provisional duties apply to goods released on or after that date. If your shipment released before the preliminary determination, you are clear. If it released after, provisional duties are due even if the purchase order and invoice predate the case by months.

Third, talk to your broker about the margin calculation and the RPP bond impact. If your broker is not raising this proactively, that is a flag. SIMA cases are not optional-reading for importers of subject goods. Your duty planning should already include provisional rates, bond adjustments, and a refund-tracking process if the case closes in your favor.

If your company uses wheat gluten as an input and you have been sourcing from Italy, Poland, or the UK, this is also the moment to review your supplier base. Provisional duties raise your landed cost immediately. Switching to a non-subject country of origin avoids SIMA duties entirely, assuming the substitute supplier can meet your quality and volume requirements. That is a sourcing decision, not a customs one, but the cost impact is real and it starts now.

Most importers do not see a SIMA case coming until the preliminary determination hits. The complaint is filed, the investigation runs quietly, and then one day your broker tells you there is a new duty line on the CAD. If that is where you are right now, you are not alone. The next step is to get the filing mechanics right, confirm your bond can carry the load, and track every payment for a potential refund down the line.

We file CADs against SIMA cases weekly. If your broker has not walked you through the margin table and the bond math yet, get in touch.

Source: CSCB