Customs Implements Phase Four of the Truck Trade Act Enforcement

Issue 516, May 9, 2006

Truck shipments arriving at the border are required to notify Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in advance of their arrival. Currently this is done as a portion of the PAPS (Pre Arrival Processing System) procedure. Under the current procedure the truck carrier will notify the Customs Broker who will transmit the information to CBP via ABI (Automated Broker Interface) or EDI (Electronic Data Interface). The carrier then relies on the Broker to transmit the information before arrival. If a truck arrives at the border before CBP is notified the trucker is subject to a penalty.

Now, a carrier that is enrolled in the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) program, and crossing at an ACE enabled port, may choose to transmit the E-manifest required cargo information directly to CBP either through EDI or the ACE Portal. By transmitting the manifest information directly, the carrier will know at what time the truck may legally arrive.

It is important to note that transmission of the manifest information does not constitute Customs clearance. The carrier may choose to continue to use an ABI filer, such as a Customs Broker, to transmit the Customs clearance information to CBP so that the shipment will have cleared Customs before arrival. If the Customs clearance information has not been received by CBP prior to the arrival of the truck at the border the carrier will be referred to secondary until clearance information can be transmitted to CBP by the broker. For this reason, carriers will want to continue the current PAPS program procedures so that Customs will have all of the entry information before arrival.

Carriers not participating in ACE, that are arriving at an ACE implemented port without having transmitted advance cargo information by the time of arrival, will neither receive a permit to unlade no a permit to proceed. The truck will be either forced to return to the exporting country until the information has been transmitted, or wait in secondary until the required cargo information is electronically received by CBP.

Quota class merchandise that is subject to a "live entry" requirement is not affected by this change. In these shipments advance manifesting requirements will not be enforced since the entry cannot be done until the carrier actually arrives in secondary at Customs.

There are currently just under 50 ports on the northern and southern borders that are ACE enabled. For ports that do not currently have ACE the current procedure does not change until 30 days after the port becomes ACE enabled.

For more information see the CBP website at http://www.cbp.gov/xp/cgov/import/communications_to_trade/advance_info/phase4_implement.xml