The Single Window Initiative (SWI) is a single point for advance reporting of import information to CBSA and is the result of consultations with the trade community to make border release and other governmental agency (OGA) requirements and reporting easier.
To support the transition to the SWI/IID, the deadline to sunset legacy service options OGD PARS and OGD RMD has been extended to April 1, 2019.
The deadline to onboard to the SWI/IID has been extended to January 1, 2019. By this date CBSA is advising that all trade members’ participating, are expected to have completed testing and be certified to transmit via the IID.
Prior to SWI, not all information required by the OGA was listed in the customs declaration.  If the OGA needed further details on the import, in most cases, they would contact the importer of record directly. To make a border related decision before import, shipment information required by the Other Government Agency such as licenses, permits, and certificates would need to be validated.
The SWI will collect information on the import for both CBSA and participating government agencies (PGA).
Participating Government Agencies to date include:
Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission
Environment and Climate Change Canada
Fisheries and Oceans Canada
Global Affairs Canada
Health Canada
Natural Resources Canada
Public Health Agency of Canada
Transport Canada
 All information required by CBSA and PGAs will need to be provided in a single report. This report (customs declaration) is the Integrated Customs Declaration (IID) which has many more data fields than the current declaration. These additional fields capture information on the imported goods that the regulating PGA need to know.
If your products are regulated by any PGA’s, CBSA will review the data provided in the IID in the following steps:
- Identify the regulating PGA for the commodity as reported in the IID
- Validate the IID data fields against the mandatory, conditional or optional data of that regulating PGA
- Share the data with the applicable PGA
- A release decision is made and shared with the carrier
Importers know their product and should be familiar with the information required by all Participating Government Agencies. This information should be shared with Willson International.
Some PGA programs co-regulate certain commodities. Importers will need to ensure that all of the mandatory commodity importation data and image requirements are captured for all relevant PGA programs.
Once the appropriate CBSA PGA program has been determined, the additional details required for SWI IID can be viewed at the following:
The following link provides a searchable list of HS tariff classification by PGA
Data Element Matching Criteria Tables by Participating Government Departments and Agencies