Customs Clearance and Continuous Customs Bond

by Samuel C. Customs Advisor

When you import commercial goods to the United States, you’re required to post a potential “bond” for customs clearance. Apart from bonds, importers have to present a hard copy of the commercial invoice that contains the history of all transaction made between two merchandisers during a specific period of time. At the arrival of your shipment at a particular port of call, the authorized officers of the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) will ask for power of attorney (POA) by the broker/carrier.

At the entry time when the vessel reaches the destination, the consignee needs to present a well-formatted delivery note on behalf of the actual owner of the shipment. After the examination, the officers may release the container. It usually happens when they confirm that no regulation and rules had been violated by the importer during the transaction. Here you might have to wait for some additional documentation designed for valid entry of trade in the country.

Let’s know about continuous customs bond first. The aforementioned information is a formal piece of necessary requirements. When we talk about bonds it much sounds like the insurance of things that we commonly made. We have to purchase insurance for our cars, bicycles, and there are plenty of insurance policies when you look in the market. But the customs bond has quite a different story. There are mainly two types of bond – Continuous Customs bond and Single Entry Bond. Both the documents has classified different according to their statuses.

A continuous customs bond is valid for all importation made within a year. A licensed ocean freight forwarder can post your material. Customs brokers are authorized companies or personas by the US government to undertake the responsibility of filing different types of bond on behalf of respective importers through official website of CBP.

These types of customs bond can be used for all the merchandise carried out in a year and it automatically gets renewed. Brokers have to take a proper examination to obtain a legal permit of helping other traders in acquiring bonds. They fill a specific form of 301 customs bond to arrange payment of duties, taxes, and fees of the principal.

There are a few special laws enforced by the federal agency CBP for commodities that come under the regulation of different departments like Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) etc.

A single entry bond is valid for one-time importation in a single year. But this bond is comparatively expensive than the other one and one need to fill ISF with it. In continuous customs bond, importer doesn’t need to fill additional ISF as it is combined with it. Remember that these documents act as evidence that you are trading legally as an authentic company and capable of reimbursement in any bond insufficiency.