Canada's first Chinese-built EV import window closed on 31 August 2026 having used 15,603 of its 24,500 permits — about 64%. The remaining 8,897 were never claimed.
Those slots do not expire. Unused allocation carries into the second six-month window, which opened on 1 September with as many as 33,397 permits available: the year's second tranche of 24,500 plus everything the first window left behind.
The shortfall is the story
A week before the deadline, TeslAnt reported the window at 61% with 15,063 permits used and posed the obvious question — what happens if the rest are consumed before 31 August? They were not. The final week added 540 vehicles, a rate that would have needed months rather than days to close the gap.
That matters because the quota was designed as a scarce resource. Permits go first-come, first-served to eligible Canada-based manufacturers, and importing outside the quota means paying the 100% surtax Canada imposed on Chinese-built EVs in 2024 instead of the 6.1% most-favoured-nation rate. A scramble was the expected behaviour. There was no scramble.
Tesla ran the window almost alone
The concentration held to the end. Tesla accounted for the overwhelming majority of vehicles admitted under the window. Drive Tesla identifies only two other users of any consequence — Lotus, importing the Eletre, and Lincoln, with the Chinese-built Nautilus Hybrid — amounting to a few hundred vehicles between them.
| First window, 1 March – 31 August 2026 | |
|---|---|
| Permits available | 24,500 |
| Permits used | 15,603 (64%) |
| Unused, carried forward | 8,897 |
| Available from 1 September | up to 33,397 |
| Tariff under permit | 6.1% |
| Tariff outside quota | 100% |
The scheme was written with BYD, Chery and Geely market entry in mind. For six months it functioned instead as a tariff exemption for an American company's Shanghai output, letting Tesla list a Model 3 Premium RWD at C$39,490.
What changes now
Two things at once. The pool is a third larger than it was designed to be, and the competition Ottawa expected is finally showing up — BYD has put a Canadian site online carrying a "Coming Soon" message. A window Tesla could previously fill at its own pace now has more room in it and more claimants for it.
Europe settled the same argument differently
The EU's definitive countervailing duties, in force since 30 October 2024, assigned Tesla 7.8% after an individual examination of its Shanghai plant — against 17.0% for BYD, 18.8% for Geely and 35.3% for SAIC, on top of the standard 10% car import duty, and running for five years.
No windows, no permit race, no carry-forward. A European buyer's Shanghai-built Tesla carries a known cost the company can price around years ahead. Canada's design instead produced a deadline nobody met and a second window that starts oversized.
The transferable point for a European reader is about supply rather than tariffs. How much of Tesla's price positioning in any market now rests on whether Shanghai output can reach it, and on what terms? Canada has just demonstrated that even a favourable rate is no guarantee the cars actually turn up.