battery questions/import
 

so im just curious but, are importing batteries illegal? lipo and/or nimh?

No.

nope, just be ready for the stiff duty. I got some from hobbyking. very good quality but after I got them I had to pay a good amount of duty. I may have saved around 5$ on each battery.

well customs seized my package because i bought 2 batteries from evike, they said it was prohibited and they were explosive devices. then they said lipo batteries are restricted items and they cannot import them/ hand them off to Canada and canada post wont ship them..... ( but i ordered x2 nimh batteries :/

given i called the cbsa in B.C. and was on hold for 1.4 hours and then talked to a chick, who then had me talk to some customs agent manager who eventually after talking to for 45 mins, cleared the package... but wtf is with that?

Importing batteries is now more difficult because transporting them in an aircraft is now prohibited according to new airline regulations.

Due to new airline safety regulations announced by the ICAO, pure power products (e.g. Batteries, Power Banks) are currently not allowed to be shipped by Airline service with the exception of the following 24 countries:
Russian federation, Belgium, Poland, Denmark, France, Finland, Netherlands, Czech republic, Croatia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia, Spain, Italy, United kingdom, Austria, Hungary, Ireland, Norway, Portugal, Slovakia, Switzerland

This came to a surprise to me as well when I could import 18650 batteries 3 years ago. I'm not sure if this regulation was repealed but it still seems to be in effect on dx.com. They said it was temporary but never went away.

They probably had some misunderstanding about this regulation. Canada Post has their own policy against shipping potentially explosive products and that might be why they had to differentiate something like a propane tank and a lithium battery.

Cell phones, tablets, laptops, portable game consols, drones, cameras, all running on batteries.

All the new green lawn tools.

Hybrid cars.

All banned. what a drag.

i've been looking everywhere and the only info i can find is specific to "lithium" batteries, nothing of nimh cell or cells type batteries. the custom agent told me lithium is illegal to import, but i told her it was nimh, she paused then told me, batteries in general, but i called canada post before hand and even they told me no no to lithium, but nimh is fine

wanted to mention is specifically requested ground shipping for this order of batteries. i feel like either canada post or the cbsa are lieing to me about the importation of " nimh" batteries.

becasue once i confronted her and sent her an invoice of my order to confirm the nimh, she cleared it from customs. but earlier told me ALL batteries are illegal to import...

im really confused here... clearly im going to be buying batteries in canada now, this hassle was ridiculous ( and i checked with the cbsa and canada post before ordering, specific to nimh and they both said it is 100% fine ( canada post just said they requested to know that nimh batteries are inside) but it shows up to the border and its mayhem.

anyone have any hard facts on this so i can educate myself, because after 2 hours of searching, its only about lithium.

i wanted to mention, i have had batteries come across before no problems for some electronic statues i have ( they came in to customs from montreal no problems) but customs in b.c. ( richmond) stopped them, rejected them without question or notification, only way i was aware was the tracking number, then at least half my day was out figuring this problem out.

sorry for the rant, i just cant comprehend the issue so its bothering me

As a rule ask them to cite the reference they're using to deny entry. Not in a lippy manner but in the spirit of seeking further info.

Also anyone you get on the phone will probably not know a lot about what's going on and will tend to pull facts out of the air just to get you to hang up.

So while batteries are considered hazardous goods and subject to some transport requirements/paper work they're not like trying to bring in elephant ivory or drugs.

I ordered 4 batteries (lipos) from hobbyking, after shipping and exchange rate I paid $20 per battery which is a far cry from the $30-$40 you pay in stores here, 7.4 1800 mah dual leaf lipos, yes you're paying 2x the advertised price online (mine were just under $9 usd but I still saved at least 50 bucks). It was shipped via fedex and I thought I get hit hard like ups usually does but I didn't pay any duty on them. Customs are hit and miss, some days they're happy other days they're grumpy. This was just before x-mas this year.

FedEx will send you the duty in 2 weeks they never forget unless you tell hobbyking to pay for duty.

Iirc correctly hobbyking ships via FedEx ground which is why it's legal to import. It is via AIR mail that is now regulated.

My email from hobbyking shows:

SHIPPING METHOD:
Specific Shipping - FedEx Canada Ground Residential (Zone 51) 501g - 1000g

FYI ordering from hobbyking will get through customs no problem. They have the paperwork and follow the guidelines to ship it individually without equipment at 30% charge. The shipping is via ground mail which will always be longer and customs to top it off ofc.

So long as you import it from a distributor who is in the north American continent it should he okay.

based on what I remember from my battery shopping research, hobbyking is the only good place to buy batteries online. Most other websites are too expensive compared to local airsoft stores.

I order Lipo from hobbyking all the time

The UPS duty on them is usually $18

Someone at cbsa made a mistake.