Certificates Of Origin

A Certificate Of Origin is a document widely used in international trade transactions attesting that goods exported in a shipment have been wholly obtained, produced, manufactured or processed in a particular country.

Exporters that frequently have documents certified often find the notarization process costly and time consuming. An alternative to notarization of documents is through a letter of waiver obtained from the shipper (i.e., manufacturer or exporter) or her/his agent. The Stoney Creek Chamber of Commerce allows companies that are frequent users of our service to place a letter of waiver on file stating that they take responsibility for the documents that they present to us.

The Stoney Creek Chamber can certify a variety of documents for international shipping.  We follow the procedures set out by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce in regards to certifying documents.  Before we can certify your documents, we require that you either have them notarized or provide us with a notarized letter of waiver.  If you will be doing a lot of shipping, providing a notarized letter is generally easier and less time-consuming.  We will keep the letter on file so that you do not need to have your shipping documents notarized each time you have a certification done.   The letter will be valid for two years, unless your contact information changes.

The Letter of Waiver

  1. Download This Letter then copy and paste the text onto your company’s letterhead, deleting or replacing the red text as needed.
  2. Sign the customized letter in front of a lawyer or notary public, who will then stamp the document.  If you have a commissioner of oaths on staff, that person can notarize the letter for you.
  3. Bring the notarized letter of waiver to the Chamber office at 21 Mountain Ave. S., Stoney Creek with the documents you need certified.  This process will take about 10 minutes, depending on the number of documents that need to be certified.  Our hours of operation are 8:00am – 12:00pm, Monday to Friday.

Cost for document certification is $10.00 per shipment (for members in good standing) of the Stoney Creek Chamber.