Contact eBay's for business page on Facebook or Twitter. Provide them with the delivery date from the tracking. Ask them to confirm what the last possible date is for the buyer to open a return.
Additionally, ask them by eBay's policy whether it is the buyer or seller who is responsible for paying duties.
If the return window is closed, and they say it's the buyer's responsibility, you have no more liability. Your only liability is a negative feedback, which you can then have removed because the buyer would be leaving you feedback based on something out of your control and not included in the transaction.
The best way to have a negative feedback removed is through this link: https://www.ebay.ca/help/selling/selling/seller-levels-performance-standards/appeal-defect?id=4871#s... - scroll to the bottom, and click 'e-mail us'. You have to be clear that you're not looking for info on the feedback removal policy, otherwise they will just copy and paste to you info about asking the seller to revise the feedback. You have to be clear that their feedback violates eBay's policy because of X, explain the duty disagreement, copy and paste in the eBay CSR who told you it was up to the customer to pay it, you're done.
With that said, that's only from the one-dimensional perspective of protecting your account. If you're a full time seller, you may want to consider refunding it as a 1 time courtesy. It really depends on context. The amount of back and fourth you will take with customer service, and then having to possibly message eBay more than once to confirm policy and have negative feedback removed, it might be better for everybody just to eat the $26 on a $1000+ transaction. The customer is happy, you save some time. In online selling, not everything always goes according to plan. Which isn't to say you're at fault.
With that said, the only way I would say you are at fault is if you advertised a shipping service like USPS, and used Fedex or UPS instead without consulting the buyer. As a Canadian, I specifically avoid US listings that use UPS, because they charge a very high brokerage fee. While I believe it's common sense that the buyer is responsible for import charges (unless otherwise stated), I would be annoyed if a seller shipped with UPS instead of Canada Post (via UPS), and I was hit with a brokerage charge. I wouldn't be annoyed if I was hit with a duty or brokerage fee in any other situation. The way I see it, that's always been the buyer's responsibility with international purchases.
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