CBP Announcement of New ACE Post-Release Deadline Expected Soon, Triggering 30-Day Countdown

CBP is expected to soon announce the new deadline for ACE post-release capabilities, including drawback and reconciliation, said trade industry executives involved in ACE implementation. The mandatory use date, originally set for Jan. 14 (see 1612090030), will be announced in a Federal Register notice, said Fany Flores-Pastor, director-R&D compliance systems at Descartes. “I would say I anticipate seeing the notice in the next couple of weeks but that is just a guess,” Tom Gould of Sandler Travis recently said. “If we see a FR notice in 2 weeks it would be 6 weeks before implementation,” he said. A CBP spokeswoman on Feb. 9 said that no update was available on when the new deadline would be announced, but that CBP "will give a 30-day notice" before ACE filing is required.

CBP postponed the deadline just days before ACE was to become the only electronic system for filing liquidation, drawback, reconciliation, duty deferral, collections and statements, as well as Importer Security Filings (see 1701110039). “The delay was caused because there were too many open issues with drawback,” said Celeste Catano, senior global strategist at Kewill. “The testing of drawback was extremely difficult for the drawback filers,” she said. “CBP did not have data that could be used and the filers could not supply test data because they typically do not file the data and did not have the software to do so. CBP worked with others in the trade to supply data that could be used in a limited way by the drawback filers. It helped but did limit the scenarios that could be tested,” Catano said.

Unlike previous delays to ACE deadlines, which came in response to requests from the trade community, CBP postponed the post-release deadline on its own initiative, Flores-Pastor said. “From my perspective, I think it’s that CBP wasn’t comfortable enough with the testing so far to be able to deploy,” she said. The delay has provided the trade community with additional time to test and improve readiness, but there are still limitations on testing because of the reliance on CBP client representatives to input data, Flores-Pastor said.