Customs Changes to Automated Clearing House (ACH) Payments

Issue 491, October 12, 2005

U.S. Customs is in the process of making a change in the program they use to collect duty from those importers who pay Customs duty directly via Automated Clearing House (ACH) wire transfer. The change is small but significant. Importers are required to notify their banks regarding this change so that payment continues to be made to Customs in a timely manner.

The only change that the ACH payers need to make involves a change in the customer number from 9000000640 to 7005009701 and change the transit routing number from 043000261 to 042736141.

The change can be summarized by the following;

All ACH Debit Payers will need to notify their banks of this change as soon as possible, especially those ACH Debit Payers who have edits on their accounts for this customer information.

Be aware that Customs expects the migration to the new program to take some time. They expect to be completed by December 31, 2005, at which time all transactions will be under the new customer information. However, between now and the time of completion either the old or the new numbers could be used for the debit transaction. Please insure that your bank is aware of the situation.

Failure to make the change may result in an ACH debit rejection. Such a rejection would result in Customs not receiving the duty in a timely manner and will result in monetary penalties being imposed by Customs.