I recently purchased a used 21C that was listed here in the sale section. One small problem, I'm in the US and the trailer was in Canada. With the US/Canada border closed to travel, I set about figuring out how to get the trailer into the US.
It is possible to bring a trailer from Canada into the US, however, it requires a lot of patience and trust. Here's the process that I used:
Only essential travel is allowed between US and Canada. There are some exemptions for family travel, but otherwise there are not many options. I contacted the Canadian border and asked if I could have a waiver to travel into B.C. for 5 hours to pick up the trailer, but my request was denied.
The only viable option that I found was to hire a transport company that was allowed to cross between the US and Canada since delivery of "goods" is considered essential.
After some PMs here and then texts with the seller. I FaceTimed with the seller who walked me through the condition of the trailer live since I was not able to see it in person. I then sent a deposit to hold the trailer while I made the transportation arrangements. Not knowing if it was possible, we signed a contract which could be terminated if the trailer could not be imported to the US
I contacted
https://www.uscanadaautotransport.com (USCANADA) who advertised that they could transport RVs between Canada and the US. I received a quote and a contract. You will need the following documents:
1. Copy of your passport
2. Signed Bill of Sale - be specific in the document, I included the VIN number and a copy of the VIN sticker - Here's where you have to have trust with the seller, I wired full payment to the seller based purely on trust, a huge leap of faith but I felt comfortable with the seller based on my constant contact and FaceTime calls
3. Signed copy of the Canadian registration transferring ownership
4. Picture showing the DOT sticker and VIN number of the trailer
5. General pictures of the trailer outside
With all of the above submitted, I then received US Customs documents from USCANADA which I filled in and sent back.
I was then contacted that they had a driver available to pick up the trailer the next day (yes it suddenly happened quickly). The driver contacted the seller, picked up the trailer and transported it across the border.
Thankfully, the transport company had a recommendation of a storage yard in Bellingham WA
https://www.bellinghampantec.com that could receive my trailer and hold it. However, what I failed to realize is that I had to rent a space at the storage yard, so I quickly scrambled to rent a space and sent them a copy of the bill of sale as well as a short email authorizing them to receive the trailer on my behalf.
In the end it all worked out, it took about 30 days to make all the arrangements but I'm glad that I did it.
There may be other transport companies who can also cross the border but this is who I used. If you find another transport company you may have to hire a customs broker as well, USCANDA included broker services as part of the overall package.
Hopefully this information is useful to others who find a trailer in Canada and want to bring it into the US.
The next step is to register the trailer in the US....hopefully this goes smoothly (and yes I drove from Bellingham WA to CA w/o a license plate on the trailer and had multiple highway patrol pass me, I figured I would just say Covid and Bill of Sale...., thankfully I didn't have to)
Overall it cost me around $1600 which included, customs fees (1% of sales price), Broker fees, transport fees, paperwork fees and storage fees.
Kelly
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