Duties on Canadian Lumber Are Going Up Dramatically. When Will We See an Impact?

Source: Commerce Department via NLBMDA

The Commerce Department's more than doubling of countervailing and antidumping duties on Canadian softwood lumber looks on its face as a sure sign that framing lumber is going to get more expensive. What's less certain is whether you'll notice.

Lumber futures prices have declined 7.2% in the first days since the countervailing duty announcement on Aug. 8 and about 9% since the antidumping duties were revealed on July 25. But this same period also has seen reports of continued weakness in the homebuilding market as well as unemployment numbers so disturbing that President Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"The market doesn't care what's built into price. It only cares about what people are willing to pay," said Ashley Boeckholt, director of Sitka USA Lumber and a close follower of the futures market. And for many dealers, the price they're paying was set long before these announcements were made.

"The impact from the duties, I don't think will hit us really in our numbers for at least three to four months," Pete Beckmann, chief financial officer at Builders FirstSource, told analysts on July 31. Beckmann said that prediction reflects "the lead time of what we already have on the ground, what we need to work through, what's already been ordered in the pipeline, when we will receive that new wood with the duties on it and [when we'll] be able to turn it out.

"So it will really have a minimal impact on our financial results in 2025," Beckmann said. "We'll continue to assess that as we go into 2026."

The futures market has seen two run-ups in price this year: First out of fear that lumber would be part of the Trump Administration's "Liberation Day" tariffs (they weren't for Canada), and then in anticipation of the duties. Once the fear dissipated, buyers' focus returned to market demand, and they found it was tepid. In general, single-family activity is weaker than a year ago and shows no signs of rebounding, while multifamily construction under way is still sloping downward even as starts and permits are up year-over-year: