A Canadian seller who lists on Amazon.ca and expands to Amazon.com is not running one Amazon business with two storefronts. Each marketplace has its own settlement report, its own currency, its own fee schedule, and in many cases its own inventory pool. The books need to treat them as two revenue streams that happen to share a supplier and a product catalog, not as a single feed that Amazon conveniently splits for the seller.
Two Settlement Reports, Two Currencies
Amazon.ca settles in CAD. Amazon.com settles in USD, whether the seller fulfills from US-based inventory or ships cross-border through North America Remote Fulfillment. Each settlement period produces its own report, on its own schedule, with fees deducted in that marketplace’s native currency.
Combining these into one set of books means converting the USD settlement to CAD at the exchange rate in effect on the settlement date, not at an average monthly rate and not at the rate on the date funds actually arrive in a Canadian bank account if that date differs from settlement. CRA’s position on foreign currency transactions requires a consistent, documented method applied period over period, not a rate chosen after the fact to smooth results.
North America Remote Fulfillment Changes the Inventory Picture
A seller who uses Remote Fulfillment ships inventory once, to Canadian FBA warehouses, and Amazon fulfills US orders from that same Canadian stock, converting currency and adding a cross-border fee per unit. This keeps inventory in one pool and simplifies stock management, but it does not simplify the accounting: revenue still needs to be recognized and reported separately by marketplace, and the cross-border fulfillment fee is a distinct cost of the US sales channel that should not be blended into the Canadian marketplace’s cost structure when analyzing margin by channel.
A seller who instead sends dedicated inventory into US FBA warehouses avoids the cross-border fee but now holds two physical inventory pools that need separate tracking, and separately introduces the state sales tax nexus exposure covered in Amazon FBA US Inventory and State Nexus Exposure. Remote Fulfillment does not create the same physical-presence nexus question, since inventory never crosses into a US warehouse, but it does not eliminate US tax questions on its own either; sales volume and marketplace facilitator collection still need to be checked against the seller’s specific state exposure.
GST/HST Applies Only to the Canadian Side
Amazon.ca sales are subject to GST/HST under the same marketplace facilitator rules that apply to any Canadian Amazon activity. Amazon.com sales to US buyers are a separate tax jurisdiction entirely, covered by US sales tax nexus rules rather than GST/HST. A common error is applying a single blended tax rate or a single tax filing process across both marketplaces’ revenue; the two need to be tracked and filed as what they are, one Canadian consumption tax obligation and one set of US state obligations that depend on nexus.
Building a Combined Profitability View
Seeing true margin across both marketplaces requires more than adding the two settlement totals together:
- Convert each marketplace’s settlement to CAD using the rate in effect on that settlement’s date, keeping the conversion documented per period.
- Separate cost of goods sold by marketplace when inventory pools are separate; when using Remote Fulfillment from a shared Canadian pool, allocate COGS by units sold per marketplace rather than by revenue, since a unit’s cost is the same regardless of which marketplace it ships to.
- Isolate marketplace-specific fees, referral fees, FBA fulfillment fees, storage fees, and the Remote Fulfillment cross-border fee where applicable, by marketplace rather than as one combined Amazon fee line.
- Report advertising spend by marketplace; Amazon Ads campaigns run separately on each marketplace and rarely share a budget or performance profile.
- Compare contribution margin by marketplace on a per-unit basis, not just in aggregate, since currency movement between periods can make a marketplace look more or less profitable than its underlying unit economics actually changed.
Skipping the per-marketplace split and working from combined totals is the shortcut that hides which marketplace is actually carrying the business. A seller can be profitable in aggregate while one marketplace quietly loses money on every unit, a pattern combined totals will not surface.
What This Requires from Your Bookkeeping
- separate settlement report imports for Amazon.ca and Amazon.com, converted to CAD at each settlement’s own exchange rate
- a documented, consistent method for the exchange rate source and timing, applied the same way every period
- COGS allocated by marketplace, by unit count where inventory is pooled through Remote Fulfillment
- marketplace-specific fee and advertising tracking, not a single blended Amazon expense category
- separate tax tracking: GST/HST for Amazon.ca, state sales tax exposure assessment for Amazon.com
Scope of This Guide
This guide covers the accounting mechanics of running Amazon.ca and Amazon.com side by side. It does not cover:
- GST/HST mechanics on Amazon.ca sales in detail, covered in Amazon GST/HST for Canadian Sellers
- US state nexus exposure from FBA inventory placement, covered in Amazon FBA US Inventory and State Nexus Exposure
- settlement report reconciliation mechanics on a single marketplace, covered in Amazon Settlement Report Reconciliation
- landed cost calculation for imported inventory, covered in Landed Cost for Canadian E-Commerce Sellers
Related Guides
- Amazon GST/HST for Canadian Sellers covers the Canadian marketplace tax obligations in more detail than the summary here.
- Amazon FBA US Inventory and State Nexus Exposure covers what happens once inventory sits in US warehouses rather than moving through Remote Fulfillment.
- Foreign Exchange and Multi-Currency Payouts for Canadian Sellers covers the currency conversion mechanics this guide applies to Amazon.com settlements specifically.
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