Bike and Scooter Docking Station Is a 'Vending Machine,' CBP HQ Rules

A street mounted docking station for electronic bikes and scooters is correctly classified as a vending machine, according to a recently released CBP ruling. The ruling concerns the Monolith Docking station, which its importer, Lyft, described as a street mounted locking platform for the securing and dispensing of E-bikes or E-scooters. The station has the ability to electronically transmit operational information such as bike availability to remote servers running operations programs.

Lyft had preferred the station to be classified under the duty-free Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the U.S. heading 8517 as an "other" apparatus for the transmission of data. Lyft cited New York ruling N256564, which had classified a docking station for medical tools under heading 8517 because the stations allowed for the transfer of data from the portable medical monitoring systems to computers and other devices and enabled data sharing with multi-dimensional patient monitors.

CBP considered three possible heading classifications of the station: Lyft's preferred heading 8517; heading 8476 as an "Automatic goods-vending machine"; and heading 8479 as parts of machines with functions not specified elsewhere in Chapter 84.

CBP found that the medical docking stations cited by Lyft were different because "while the Monolith enables the reception and transmission of some data through a cellular transceiver, such functionality is merely in support of the product’s principal function, which is to facilitate the user in obtaining a bicycle to rent."

The term “vending machine” is not defined in the tariff schedule but is "consistently defined in dictionaries as an apparatus that dispenses merchandise in exchange for coins or another form of payment," CBP said. The agency found that definition was consistent with descriptions of the Monolith in industry literature and Explanatory Note 84.76. Both sources also allow that "vending machines" may incorporate a broad range of payment mechanisms, including card readers and devices designed to process “cashless” payments. Because the Monolith is "a machine where rental E-bikes and E-scooters can be obtained in exchange for cashless payment," it qualifies as a vending machine within the meaning of heading 8476 "even if the temporal nexus between delivery and payment is not necessarily direct," CBP said.