CBP is aiming to release rules for entry filings of goods valued under the $800 de minimis threshold "before the end of the calendar year," said Brenda Smith, executive assistant commissioner for the CBP Office of Trade, on Sept. 12 during the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America conference in Washington. CBP knows "it's a big deal" to customs brokers "whether we require the classification on all small packages," she said. It's a "thorny issue," but "I think we are close to having kind of the final conversations," so "look forward to that in the next couple months."
321 de minimis
De minimis is a policy described in Section 321, 19 USC 1321. It allows the import of articles duty and tax free, provided their aggregate fair retail value does not exceed $800 in the country from which the articles are imported. Additionally, the articles must be imported by only one person on one day. The previous de minimis threshold was $200, but the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act increased it to $800.
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for Sept. 5-8 in case they were missed.
Reconciling U.S., Mexican and Canadian de minimis levels, and lowering the U.S.’s current $800 level if necessary, could prove difficult within NAFTA renegotations, Jon Kent, a lobbyist for the National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America, said Sept. 11 during the NCBFAA Government Affairs Conference. While some believe that raised de minimis levels are good for U.S. small businesses, Kent believes that’s a “fairy tale” that rapidly increased imports. “It chews up a lot of business,” Kent said of the U.S.’s now $800 de minimis level.
CBP and other agencies involved in trade still have some ways to go before resolving an ongoing debate on how to describe goods in Section 321 shipments, said Christa Brzozowski, deputy assistant secretary for trade and transport at the Department of Homeland Security, at the U.S. Air Cargo Industry Affairs Summit Sept. 6 in Washington. The government still needs to work through process issues related to what goods are eligible for expedited release, and what role partner government agencies (PGAs) will have in the process, before considering whether to require 10-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule numbers or written descriptors, she said.
CBP posted draft recommendations from the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) e-commerce working group on Section 321 entries ahead of the COAC meeting on Aug. 23 in San Diego. The recommendations "are intended to improve the import process from a facilitation and enforcement perspective for section 321-eligible shipments across all modes of transportation," the working group said. CBP issued an interim final rule on the de minimis level last year and raised a number of questions on the role of other agencies' requirements for such shipments (see 1608250029).
Consolidated online orders of goods that fall under the de minimis value threshold and are sent directly to the consumer are eligible for Section 321 exemptions, CBP said in a July 26 ruling. Unlike situations in which commercial shipments of low-value products are sent to a retailer to be put up for sale (see 1707310053), CBP allows for duty-free entry of grouped orders addressed to the end customer, CBP said. The ruling request involved e-commerce orders of merchandise through Zara.com and Fashion Retail, a Spanish company that handles shipments of the orders, CBP said.
The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) for CBP will next meet Aug. 23 in San Diego, CBP said in a notice.
The aggregate value limit of $800 per day for informal entry and duty-free treatment for commercial shipments covers retailers, rather than end-purchasers, CBP said in a July 19 ruling, HQ H275530. The ruling followed a request from Arkel about the company's ability to ship bike parts under the de minimis value to be stocked by retail stores in the U.S. Section 321 allows for importations under the de minimis value to enter duty free and with less processing by the government.
The Food and Drug Administration updated a 1994 notice that identified categories of products that can be released by CBP without FDA notification when under the de minimis value (Section 321) to reflect some recent changes, the agency said in a CSMS message (here). While the FDA already updated a regulatory procedural manual after the CBP de minimis threshold was increased from $200 to $800 (here), that 1994 notice was due for an update, it said. "Based on conversations with stakeholders, FDA reporting requirements for de minimis shipments were unclear given FDA’s legacy CSMS messages on such low value shipments," it said.
AUSTIN, Texas -- CBP Acting Commissioner Kevin McAleenan will raise the need for a worldwide unique facility identifier when he travels to Brussels in early July for a meeting of the World Customs Organization policy council, Valerie Neuhart, acting director of CBP’s Office of Trade Relations, said on June 21. McAleenan will be joined in the effort by representatives from Canada and Mexico, who have also been in discussions with CBP about harmonizing unique facility identifiers, she said, speaking during a panel discussion of upcoming ACE priorities at the American Association of Exporters and Importers annual conference.