Duties on most Canadian softwood lumber coming into the U.S. are going down. The Commerce Department published final results of its latest antidumping and countervailing duty reviews on Oct. 19, according to a Federal Register notice, and the new combined rate for most Canadian producers is 24.75%, down from about 35%.
The two notices cover lumber shipped during calendar year 2024. That's the period of review, but the rates set in these reviews also become the new cash deposit rates importers must pay going forward. Those deposits apply to lumber entered, or withdrawn from a warehouse, on or after Oct. 19, 2026.
On the antidumping side, Commerce individually examined three big producers. Canfor came in at 17.00%, Resolute at 13.13% and West Fraser at 4.71%. The 220 other companies covered by the review, the ones Commerce didn't examine one by one, get 10.64%, a weighted average of the three.
The countervailing duty review, which targets subsidies, looked closely at two companies. West Fraser's final rate is 15.31% and Resolute's is 12.42%. The 215 non-selected companies, a list that includes Canfor, get 14.11%.
Add the two together and most Canadian mills land at 24.75%. By our math, Canfor's combined rate is 31.11%, Resolute's is 25.55% and West Fraser's is 20.02%. Producers that weren't part of this review at all keep their most recent rate, or fall back to the original investigation's all-others rates of 6.04% for antidumping and 14.19% for countervailing duties.
This was the seventh round of annual reviews, according to the National Association of Home Builders, which flagged the final numbers on Oct. 16, a few days before publication. NAHB put the previous combined rate at about 35.16%. Global Affairs Canada lists that earlier all-others figure as 20.53% antidumping plus 14.63% countervailing, from the sixth review.
The final numbers didn't move much from April's preliminary results. Global Affairs Canada's tracker showed a preliminary all-others rate of 24.83%, and Commerce says it made some changes to the company calculations after reviewing comments.
There's a second layer on top of these duties. A separate 10% Section 232 tariff on imported softwood timber and lumber took effect Oct. 14, 2025, and NAHB says that brings total duties on Canadian lumber to 34.75%. The same tracker notes that scheduled increases to the Section 232 tariffs on kitchen cabinets and vanities were pushed back to Jan. 1, 2027.
NAHB has long opposed the lumber duties, saying they hurt housing affordability. The group is pushing the administration to suspend tariffs on building materials and negotiate a new softwood lumber agreement with Canada, and it backs the Housing Tariff Exclusion Act in Congress.
Why it matters for Contractors
Framing lumber is a big line item on any new build or addition. A cut of roughly 10 points in the duty rate for most Canadian mills is real news, though neither Commerce nor NAHB has said how much of it will show up in retail prices, and the 10% Section 232 tariff still applies.
If you have framing packages out for bid or a lumber-heavy job coming up, ask your yard whether its quotes reflect the new deposit rates that took effect Oct. 19 and how long a quote will hold. If you build lumber escalation language into your contracts, this is a good time to check that it still fits.