CBP Posts Timeline for Units of Quantity Updates

CBP plans to make its next unit of quantity changes to the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States on Jan. 1, 2020, CBP said in a March 8 notice. The changes are necessary under the drawback provisions in the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act, which require CBP to be able to "identify a standard 'per unit' quantity" at the HTSUS level, CBP said in a fact sheet. "To meet the Drawback requirements stipulated by TFTEA, CBP will be changing all the statistical suffixes with a unit of quantity (UOQ) of 'X' to a standardized unit of measurement such as kilograms ('kg') or number ('No.')," the agency said. "A UOQ of X indicates importers do not report a quantity, other than gross weight, which conflicts with the Drawback data collection requirements outlined by TFTEA."

The first set of UOQ changes were made at the beginning of the year (see 1901110016). "All 659 dutiable statistical suffixes with a UOQ of 'X'" were given a specific UOQ on Jan. 1. CBP posted a new list of those dutiable suffixes. The next UOQ update is "tentatively scheduled to be implemented "on Jan. 1, 2020, and will convert all the remaining 862 non-dutiable statistical suffixes," CBP said. CBP plans to release a list of the non-dutiable statistical suffixes by June 3, it said.