The Duty Relief Program (DRP) is one of the more useful customs programs available to Canadian manufacturers in today's environment. If a manufacturer imports raw material into Canada and later exports the resulting product — either as-is or after being used in production — duties on the original import can be deferred under the program.

What the program checks is records. If a manufacturer can demonstrate that imported material was received, consumed, diverted, or exported, with traceable system data backing each step, the program works as designed. If those records have to be rebuilt by hand each month from spreadsheets, broker emails, and ERP exports, the workload grows until something slips.

This post walks through where that work sits, and what a manufacturing-grade traceability layer needs to do to make DRP reporting repeatable.

What the Duty Relief Program is

The Duty Relief Program, administered by the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), can allow eligible importers to defer duties on goods that are imported and later exported, either as-is or after being consumed, expended, or used in processing. CBSA's Duty Relief Program page is the canonical program reference and emphasizes sufficient records for CBSA audit, proper handling of scrap and waste, and accurate reporting of any goods that don't end up exported.

DRP is distinct from Duty Drawback, a separate program in which duties are paid at import and refunded after export. Both programs have a place. This post covers DRP, and specifically the records the plant needs to be able to produce.

CBSA sets the specific conditions and timelines and decides eligibility. Your customs broker can advise on the application.

Why import records are only the beginning

A manufacturer usually has part of the answer already. The customs broker provides CAD transaction data after clearance. The ERP holds POs, receipts, invoices, and inventory positions. The MES or production system holds batches, lot consumption, scrap, and shop-floor activity. The shipping system holds export records.

Those records sit in different systems, in different units of measure, with different identifiers. DRP reporting and audit readiness need all of them tied together.

The transaction-number-to-lot-number challenge

The CBSA transaction number (from the CAD / B3 form) arrives from the broker. The supplier lot arrives on a tag attached to the skid. Inside the plant, nothing connects those two identifiers unless a step in the process is set up to do it.

The cleanest place to link them is at receipt: the CBSA transaction number is connected to the ASN, PO, invoice, and the supplier lot scanned at receiving. Optional internal labels, barcode scans, or receiving workflows can be used to make that link concrete in a way that fits the plant's existing process. From then on, batch consumption, scrap entries and finished-goods shipments can all carry the customs context with them.

This step is easy to underestimate, because the customs data and the supplier-lot data both already exist, just in different places. "Linking them later" is where DRP reporting tends to fall apart.

Why scrap, flash, and waste matter

DRP is sensitive to material that does not end up exported. Process scrap, flash from forging, shavings from machining, rejected parts, domestic sales, destruction, and missing inventory all have to be accounted for — and the duty exposure on each has to be calculable.

That means scrap can't only be a quantity in a production report. It has to be tied back to the originating customs transaction so the duty and GST exposure on that quantity can be calculated cleanly. A scrap entry without a lot link can't be used on a DRP report.

This is one of the strongest arguments for capturing scrap, flash, and rejects at the point of production rather than reconciling at the end of the shift. The further the scrap event is from the consumed lot, the harder the link becomes to reconstruct later.

The four reports manufacturers should be ready to produce

Records a manufacturer may need to produce during DRP reporting, review, or audit generally fall into four buckets: a Diversion Report (material that didn't end up exported, with duty and GST owing), an Import Summary Report (every CAD transaction with quantities received, diverted, exported, and remaining), an Inventory Report (imported material still on hand with aging against the required DRP timeline), and a Sales / Export Report (finished goods tied back to the imported material they came from).

All four are typically required in Excel, on a monthly cadence — and none of them can be produced cleanly if the customs-to-lot link wasn't established at receipt. The full breakdown of each report's fields, sources, and how the data is assembled lives on the solution page: see the four DRP reports →

When the customs link is made at receipt, the month-end DRP reports come out of records the plant has been keeping all month.

How ERP, MES, and shop-floor systems need to work together

In a typical plant, no single system holds all of this. The ERP doesn't see flash from a forging press. The MES doesn't see the broker's CAD transaction. The shipping system doesn't see the supplier lot tag.

The traceability layer that supports DRP needs to:

  • Ingest customs data from the broker (SFTP, EDI, structured file)
  • Connect to ERP for POs, receipts, invoices, BOMs, routings, costs, exchange rates, inventory, and shipments
  • Capture production, scrap, flash, and rejected parts at the point of production
  • Carry the CBSA transaction number through every link in the chain
  • Produce the four reports above on a repeatable schedule

In 10in6, that work spans several parts of the platform: MES production records, DQS lot traceability, scrap tracking, ERP integration, and export reporting working together.

How 10in6 helps close the gap

10in6 sits at the plant-floor end of this problem. It connects customs transaction data to the supplier lot at receipt, carries that link through batch production and scrap capture, and ties it to the export record on the way out — using the ERP and customs data you already have, and the receiving and production workflows your operators already follow.

It doesn't replace your customs broker, your ERP, or your CBSA filings. 10in6 does not determine DRP eligibility or file customs declarations. We help manufacturers build the operational traceability and reporting layer that supports their internal compliance process, ERP records, and customs broker workflows.

For a more detailed walkthrough of the customs-to-receiving reconciliation, the four reports, and how the traceability layer is built across the platform, see our solution page:

Duty Relief Program Traceability →

If your team is preparing for DRP, expanding existing DRP reporting, or rebuilding the same spreadsheets every month, that's the right place to start.