Section / 00 · Canada → Southeast Asia
Market access for Canadian food in Southeast Asia
Find out whether your product can sell in Vietnam, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia or Singapore, what it costs to get it there, and which market is worth trying first.
Then we handle the paperwork, find you a buyer, and get your first shipment away.
- Markets we cover
- 6Markets we cover
- Products classified
- 180Products classified
- Services
- 12Services
Section / 01 · Two doors
Which side of the trade are you on?
Canadian producers
I want to sell into Southeast Asia
Find out whether your product can enter a market, what registration applies and who has to hold it. You get the real cost of entry before you commit to a distributor.
For Canadian exportersSoutheast Asian importers
I want to source from Canada
Tell us the product, the specification and the destination port. We identify Canadian producers who can actually supply it and hold the certification your authority requires.
For Southeast Asian buyersSection / 02 · How it works
Three steps, in this order
Most entries fail because the order was wrong: a distributor appointed before anyone checked who may hold the registration, or artwork printed before the regulator had seen it.
This is the order that works, and the third step is the one that is not a project.
01
Decide
Which market, and is it worth entering at all?
- What the duty costs you in each market, in a number you can put in a quote
- The registration route and who is allowed to hold it
- An honest no, in week three rather than year two
02
Build
Everything that has to be true before the first container.
- Product registration filed, in the right name
- Labels and certification checked before the print run
- A distributor qualified on licence, category and channel
03
Operate
First orders, then a channel somebody is accountable for.
- Export documentation and the first consignment through customs
- Renewals and rule changes caught before they bite
- A named person in-market your distributor answers to
Step one is often grant funded. Canadian agri-food producers can claim up to 70 percent of it under AgriMarketing, which changes what the first engagement costs you. How the funding works
Section / 03 · Markets
Where Canadian food can go, and on what terms
- VietnamIn force: CPTPP. Global Affairs Canada lists the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership as in force between Canada and Vietnam. There is no separate bilateral Canada–Vietnam free trade agreement; Vietnam is also one of the ten ASEAN member states covered by the Canada–ASEAN FTA, which remains in negotiation and is not yet a source of preferential treatment.6-step registration pathway
- ThailandNot in force: in negotiation. Global Affairs Canada records the Canada–Thailand Free Trade Agreement as “In negotiations”: a Notice of Intent to enter into negotiations was tabled on 24 November 2025, and public consultations ran from 13 December 2025 to 27 January 2026. Thailand is not a CPTPP party. A Canada–Thailand Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement has been in force since 24 September 1998, but it governs investment, not tariff treatment.6-step registration pathway
- PhilippinesNot in force: in negotiation. Global Affairs Canada records the Canada–Philippines Free Trade Agreement as “In negotiations”: exploratory discussions were announced in a joint ministerial statement on 5 December 2024, and a Notice of Intent to enter into negotiations was tabled on 5 November 2025. The Philippines is not a CPTPP party. A Canada–Philippines Foreign Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement has been in force since 13 November 1996, but it governs investment, not tariff treatment.6-step registration pathway
- IndonesiaSigned, not yet in force. Global Affairs Canada gives the current status of the Canada–Indonesia Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement as “Signed” as of 24 September 2025, and records it as not in force. Until it enters into force it confers no preferential treatment, and Indonesia is not a CPTPP party, so plan a landed cost on the most-favoured-nation position, not on CEPA.6-step registration pathway
- MalaysiaIn force: CPTPP. Global Affairs Canada lists the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership as in force between Canada and Malaysia. There is no separate bilateral Canada–Malaysia free trade agreement; the Canada–ASEAN FTA, which would also cover Malaysia, is still in negotiation.6-step registration pathway
- SingaporeIn force: CPTPP. Global Affairs Canada lists the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership as in force between Canada and Singapore. A separate bilateral Canada–Singapore Free Trade Agreement appears on the Global Affairs Canada agreements register with the status “Inactive” and is not in force, so CPTPP is the operative instrument on this route.6-step registration pathway
Section / 04 · Categories
What Canada actually ships
5 pillars, 15 categories and 179 product pages, each carrying its own classification and duty position per market.
Agriculture & Ingredients
Pulses · Grains · Oats · Canola · Dairy ingredients
Packaged Food & Beverage
Snacks · Frozen foods · Beverages · Premium grocery
Written up in depth
pulses-and-legumes
Pulses & Legumes
Pulses are the most established Canadian food export into Southeast Asia, and the trade is mature enough that buyers rarely need convincing about the origin. What st…
Explore category →
grains-and-cereals
Grains & Cereals
Canadian grain trades on a grading system, not on a brand, and that is the thing worth understanding before you buy. Classes are defined by end use and functional ch…
Explore category →
oilseeds-and-vegetable-oils
Oilseeds & Vegetable Oils
Canola is the category that most rewards getting the form right. Seed, crude oil, refined oil and meal are four different products commercially, four different produ…
Explore category →Section / 05 · How we work
Numbers you can put in a budget
Most export research is somebody’s summary of somebody else’s summary. A wrong duty rate turns into a wrong price, and you find out at the border.
You can see where every number came from
Every duty rate, product code and certificate on this site links to the government page it came from, with the date we last checked it. Click through and check it yourself.
We tell you when we do not know
If we have not confirmed something it says so, in plain words. It never shows up as a guess, and it never shows up as zero. A gap you can see beats a number you cannot trust.
Nothing sits here quietly going out of date
We re-check the market pages every three months and the product pages every six. Anything past its date is treated as unconfirmed until somebody looks again.
We would rather be missing than wrong
A page we have not finished checking stays out of search results. You will not land on something here that looks complete and is not.
Section / 06 · Library
Market Access Library
What the rules actually mean for a Canadian food business in each of the six markets, written for people who have to act on them. We would rather leave a question unanswered than answer it wrong.
Halal certification · 12 articles
What halal certification certifies, and what it does not
What the claim means, which Canadian bodies each destination recognises, and what it takes to get certified and stay that way.
Start here →Labelling for export · 9 articles
Canadian labelling rules do not travel, and the ones that do are not the ones you expect
What Canadian law requires on a pack leaving the country, read page by page from the CFIA Industry Labelling Tool.
Start here →Tariffs and origin · 7 articles
Finding the duty rate that actually applies, and why the first number is wrong
What a trade agreement actually removes, what originating means, who certifies it, and who pays when the claim fails years later.
Start here →The export process · 6 articles
Your first food export from Canada, in the order the work actually happens
The approvals that gate a consignment, who holds each one, and the order the work has to happen in to stay cheap.
Start here →Funding and support · 5 articles
The AgriMarketing Program: seventy-five million dollars, and what it will actually pay for
The federal programmes that pay for this work, what they will not cover, and the free help most exporters never use.
Start here →Destination rules · 2 articles
Importing food into Singapore: licence, permit, and the fee per consignment
What a single market asks of an imported consignment, where that differs enough from the others to need its own article.
Start here →Where the openings are
Canadian products, and the markets that take them
Which products are worth your money is our opinion, not a rule. We argue it on the same checked numbers, and we sign it as ours.
Twelve Canadian products we believe could travel well
A shortlist, with the tariff position under each one. Some are obvious and priced accordingly. The interesting ones are where a high general rate meets a preference, because that is where an agreement does commercial work rather than paperwork.
6 sourcesOpportunities for Canadian lobster in Southeast Asian hospitality
Vietnam charges 27 per cent on frozen lobster at the general rate and nothing under CPTPP. That single line is worth more than most Canadian seafood exporters spend on an entire market entry, and it is decided by paperwork rather than by the agreement existing.
6 sourcesFive hotel products that can be sourced from Canada
Food service buys differently from retail: to a plate cost, a specification and a season, with no shelf to win. Five Canadian lines fit that channel in Southeast Asia, and the tariff position separates them sharply by market.
6 sourcesSection / 07 · Pricing
Start with the paperwork
Most of what we do is scoped to the job. This one is not. It is the document pack a distributor asks for and most producers cannot send, built once per product, and it is the cheapest useful thing we do.
Product pack
CAD 750–1,499 per product
Our recommendation
You have one product, or a few, and nothing you would be willing to send a buyer. This is the whole thing built once, per product, and it is yours whether or not you ever buy anything else from us.
Documentation desk
CAD 299–799 per month
The pack exists and now has to stay true. Reformulations, new pack sizes, a certificate coming up for renewal, and the questions buyers send that take a day to answer from scratch.
Two to three weeks for the first product pack, about a week for each one after it. Where a pack lands in the band depends on how much already exists, and the monthly desk is optional, starting only once the pack is delivered.
Section / 08 · Start here
Talk to us before you spend anything
Bring the product and roughly what you sell it for. We will tell you on the call whether anything obvious is in the way, and what the first real step would cost.
If Southeast Asia is not for you, that is a fine answer and you will get it early.
Section / 09 · Ask us
Or just ask a question
You do not need a product sheet or a shortlist of markets to write to us. A sentence about what you make, or what you are trying to buy, is enough to get a useful answer back.
We reply within two working days, in English.