Enter your biggest month of imports. This gives you both of the ways CBSA lets you post Release Prior to Payment security — the surety bond and the cash deposit — so you can take real numbers to your broker or surety.
Duty $0 + GST $0 = security base $0 (D17-5-2 §7)
The base is your highest monthly balance owed to CBSA — duties and taxes, GST included, per import program (RM) account. A surety bond covers two dollars of debt for every dollar of face value, so you post half the base, never less than $5,000. A cash deposit is the full base with no floor. You may also mix the two to reach the total (§7.5), and either way the ceiling is $10 million per RM account (§7.4).
Which instrument suits you is a real decision with money on both sides — a recurring premium against your own capital sitting with CBSA — and it is yours to make with your broker or surety. This tool gives you the two numbers, not the answer.
No import history? You self-assess on your projections (§7.6): run this on your planned biggest month. Raising your security later needs no approval; lowering it needs CBSA's (§7.7). CBSA also reviews the requirement annually — the window runs October 20 to October 19, and you must be compliant by January 15 (§7.8).
The reasoning behind every number here is written out in full, with sections cited, in the RPP bond guide. New to CARM? Start with registering in the CARM Client Portal. Importing food? See how to import frozen food into Canada.
This calculator assumes one duty rate across the month. If your shipments span several HS codes, or you want duty and GST computed per line with each rate citing its CBSA source, that is what the TariffWise cost estimator does.