CBP Considering Two-Track Section 321 Filing With 10-Digit HTS for ABI Section 321, Not for AMS

CBP’s Office of Field Operations has tentatively come up with some “parameters” for how it will handle Section 321 clearances going forward, said Jim Swanson, CBP director-cargo conveyance security and controls, at a National Customs Brokers & Forwarders Association of America conference on Sept. 11. The agency has agreed on a two-track solution, allowing continued clearance in the Automated Manifest System while providing new capabilities for Section 321 in the Automated Broker Interface, he said. ABI filing will include a 10-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule number as a data element, with the importer of record potentially optional, he said.

Allowing for filing in both systems would mean CBP could “continue to go down the road we’re on now,” Swanson said, speaking at the NCBFAA Government Affairs Conference. “It’s there for a very large segment of this population,” he said. “We’ve already been working with express consignment operators, and we have established manifest clearance,” he said. CBP will be looking to “match” that standard, but “not necessarily have equivalent standards,” as the agency understands the “implications of asking non-brokers to classify” at the 10-digit level, he said. Descriptions of merchandise on a Section 321 manifest must be adequate to allow CBP to establish the admissibility of goods, he cautioned.

Section 321 clearance in ABI would be granted based on the same seven data elements currently required for Section 321 clearance off manifest, Swanson said. But “one of those data elements, like all ABI solutions,” will be “a 10-digit tariff number,” he said. “You’ll be using that because that drives your business,” he said.

CBP has also had a lot of discussion on whether it will require an importer of record data element, Swanson said. “We’re willing to say IOR will be optional,” he said. Despite the difficulty in ascertaining the importer of record for e-commerce shipments, Swanson said rights holders and Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT) participants “would love to be able to build into business agreements that that information is provided in an ABI solution,” because they want to be able to track merchandise, he said.

Right now, CBP is in “discussions at a high level” about Section 321 requirements, Swanson said. The agency is “very close” to “figuring out where the path forward lies” after having gathered the opinions of different segments of the trade community. CBP first needs to establish some parameters related to the data it wants to collect, and figure out what it’s going to cost to implement and how to find the money to do it, Swanson said. Once CBP has those parameters, it will “open it up for comment” and begin the rulemaking process, he said.