Is Amazon shifting fulfillment centers from the U.S. to Canada in 2025?
Executive summary
Amazon is expanding its Canadian fulfillment footprint in 2025 — announcing new storage/distribution and exchange-point facilities and opening specialized centres such as the Pitt Meadows YXX1 site — but the available reporting contains no evidence that Amazon is shifting fulfillment centers en masse from the U.S. to Canada in 2025; growth in Canada appears additive and strategic rather than a transfer of existing U.S. capacity [1] [2] [3].
1. Canadian expansion is real and concrete
Multiple industry and company sources report new and planned facilities in Canada for 2025: Amazon publicly announced an 825,000-square-foot storage and distribution centre in Pitt Meadows (YXX1) in June 2025, and third‑party reporting lists additional Canadian distribution and “exchange point” parcel warehouses slated for Ontario (Sarnia, Cornwall) and other provinces by the end of 2025 [1] [2] [4].
2. The data show growth, not a wholesale transfer of U.S. assets
Aggregated lists and trackers still count hundreds of U.S. fulfillment and distribution sites in 2025 — industry compilations estimate well over a hundred U.S. fulfillment centers and a global network that continues to expand — and contemporary lists emphasize that Amazon keeps adding facilities worldwide rather than moving capacity out of the U.S. into Canada [5] [6] [7].
3. Strategic logic favors additive Canadian capacity, not relocation
Reporting and Amazon statements indicate Canada investments are designed to improve delivery times, skirt cross‑border friction for Canadian customers and suppliers, and provide regional storage and sortation capacity (the Pitt Meadows centre is described as a storage and distribution facility supporting regional fulfilment) — tactics consistent with adding capacity where demand grows rather than relocating existing U.S. warehouses [1] [8] [9].
4. There are nuanced local optimizations but not a national exodus
Some sources note regional optimization — for example, plans to grow in Ontario and Alberta while "scaling back" in parts of Quebec — which signals continual network tuning rather than a blanket shift of U.S. centers to Canada; these are adjustments in footprint, not wholesale cross‑border asset transfers [3]. Public lists of Canadian sites also describe “dozens” of fulfillment, sortation and delivery locations as of 2025 [10] [11].
5. Watch the sources and their agendas: PR, aggregators, and commercial lists
Amazon’s corporate pages and press releases promote new Canadian openings and local economic benefits, which serves both factual disclosure and PR interests [1]; commercial listing sites and logistics blogs compile facility counts but sometimes conflate planned, under‑construction and operational sites or project future totals without uniform sourcing [5] [6] [7]. Third‑party compilations can overstate “by 2025” projections or mix future announcements with current inventory, so their tone should be weighed against Amazon’s own statements.
6. Bottom line and reporting limits
The reporting establishes clear Canadian expansion in 2025 and continued large U.S. operations, but it does not document any program in which Amazon is shifting fulfillment centers from the U.S. to Canada en masse; instead, evidence points to additive growth in Canada and routine regional optimization — and this assessment is limited to the provided sources, which do not include internal Amazon operational memos or regulatory filings that might show asset relocations if they exist [2] [1] [5].