Plain-English guide · United States · Section 338

The 29 September Canada import ban, in plain English

On 29 September 2026 — 8 days away, 68 HTSUS subheadings of Canadian goods stop being allowed into the United States at all. Not a higher duty. Not allowed in.

This page explains the rule. The dated, sourced technical record — including the exact subheadings and the Federal Register citations — is the hub entry it's drawn from. Nothing here goes beyond what that entry already says.

What's actually changing

Since 22 August, a 50% duty has applied to a wide list of Canadian dairy, alcohol and motor-vehicle goods under Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930. On 29 September, three further proclamations remove 68 of those subheadings from the "dutiable" list entirely and put them on a "not allowed in" list instead — alcoholic beverages, dairy, and motorcycles over 800cc, plus five molasses lines and non-alcoholic beer that are easy to miss because they're filed inside the dairy and alcohol annexes rather than under their own heading.

A duty quote is not a clearance. For these 68 lines specifically, there is no rate to quote from 29 September — the goods may not enter the country at all, regardless of what anyone is willing to pay.

The one date that decides everything

Most summaries of this rule get this backwards. The ban does not turn on when your goods clear customs — it turns on when they were imported. The proclamation's own words: goods "imported, but not yet entered for consumption, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, prior to September 29, 2026" keep the 50% duty rather than becoming barred.

In practice: a shipment that physically arrived in the US before the 29th is not barred, even if the paperwork that formally enters it into commerce is filed after the 29th. What matters is the ship date into the US, not the clearance date.

Two traps in the fine print

Bulk isn't the same as packaged. Most of the barred alcohol subheadings only apply to product already packaged for the end consumer — bottles, cans, boxes, kegs. The identical product in bulk is not barred. It still carries the 50% Section 338 duty, though — "not banned" is not "no cost."
The category names undersell the list. Six of the 68 barred lines are molasses or non-alcoholic beer, sitting inside the dairy and alcohol annexes. If you import either of those and only read the headline — "alcohol, dairy and motorcycles banned" — you'd reasonably conclude it doesn't apply to you. It does.

If you export from Canada

Check whether your specific HTSUS subheading is one of the 68 — the category name alone ("alcohol," "dairy") is not enough to tell.
If it's a bulk shipment, confirm whether the packaged-only carve-out actually applies to your product before assuming you're clear.
If you can ship before 29 September, the goods need to arrive in the US by then — not just leave Canada, and not just have a US entry filed.

If you're a US importer or broker

Anything on the 68-line list that hasn't yet been imported by 29 September cannot enter — there is no duty rate that fixes this.
For shipments already in transit, the importation date is your test, not the entry-filing date.
Re-check anything you've classified as "dairy" or "alcohol" against the actual subheading list — the molasses and non-alcoholic-beer lines are easy to miss.

This guide restates the hub entry's own verified facts in plain language and adds nothing beyond them. For the exact subheadings, the primary Federal Register and White House annex citations, and the full audit trail of corrections made to this entry, see the technical record on Trade Updates.