DAP shipping: our freight to your door, your duty at the border

DAP — Delivered At Place — means we carry the cost and the risk of getting your order to the address you name, freight included. You, as the importer of record, pay the import duty and tax your country assesses on arrival. Two parties, one clean line between them.

what DAP is, precisely

DAP is an Incoterm — one of the standard delivery terms that fixes, in advance, where our responsibility ends and yours begins. Under DAP we deliver when the goods are placed at your disposal at the named place, ready for you to take in. Up to that point every cost and every risk is ours: export packing, documentation, freight, and the loss-or-damage risk the parcel carries until you take it in. What stays with you is the import side — clearing customs, and paying the duty and tax owed where you receive it.

It helps to know what DAP is not. It is not DDP, where we would pay your duty and fold it into your price, so the number you see is larger and the breakdown is buried. It is not EXW, where you would arrange the freight and the insurance yourself from our floor. DAP sits between the two on purpose: we handle the hard logistics across the border, you keep the merchandise price and the import charges visible as two separate, checkable lines. We ship worldwide, and every international order moves on these terms — the same rule for a retailer in Toronto, in Dallas, or further out.

who pays what, line by line

Everything to your door is ours. Everything to clear the goods inward is yours.

line item	who pays
export packing and documentation	us
freight to your address	us
transit risk to your door (loss or damage)	us
import duty	you
import tax (GST/HST in Canada, VAT in most markets)	you
customs clearance and carrier disbursement	you
signature on delivery	you

We do not quote your duty rate, and you should be wary of any overseas supplier who does. It is set by your own customs authority against the tariff classification for finished jewelry — not by us. Your broker or customs authority will give you the exact figure for your shipment.

how it lands for a Canada or U.S. retailer

Most of the shops we supply are the importers themselves — independents across Canada and the United States — so the path is short. North American orders ship insured via FedEx or UPS, typically 5 to 10 business days, with a signature required on delivery. On those express shipments the carrier doubles as your customs broker: it clears the parcel, advances the duty and tax to your customs authority, and bills that amount back to you, the named importer, sometimes with a small disbursement fee for fronting it. You are the importer of record either way — the carrier only does the filing. It is the same flow every order runs from our floor to your counter, with the border handled inside it rather than left to you.

landing it in your retail math

Two of the lines you pay behave differently in your books, and it is worth keeping them apart. Duty is a true cost: it stays in the piece and belongs in your margin. Import tax often does not — a tax-registered retailer can usually recover GST, HST, or VAT as an input credit, so it passes through your books rather than into the price. Which is which depends on your registration and your jurisdiction; confirm it with your accountant, not with us. For pricing, the rule is plain — fold the duty into your landed cost, treat the recoverable tax as a pass-through, and the counter price you build will hold.

the paperwork that keeps it moving

Customs clears on documents, so the documents are where a clean DAP shipment is won or lost. Three things matter. The commercial invoice has to describe the goods accurately and carry an honest declared value; under-declaring to shave duty is the buyer's liability, not a favor. The stones' papers should match the goods — our natural diamonds are GIA-certified and our lab-grown are IGI-certified, with certificates available on request — which is exactly the documentation a customs officer wants to see line up. And the tariff classification should stay consistent from one order to the next, so your duty stays predictable instead of moving with whoever keys in the entry.

A term like DAP is not logistics trivia. It is the line that decides which numbers are ours and which are yours — and when that line is drawn cleanly, the price you quote your own customer rests on costs you can name, not on charges that show up after the box does.