New Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act Requirement

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection Cargo Systems Messaging Service, “On Tuesday January 1, 2019, all dutiable harmonized tariff schedule of the United States (HTSUS) statistical suffixes that had a unit of quantity (UOQ) of “X” were given a new specific UOQ, such as kilograms (kg) or numbers (No.), to comply with certain new reporting requirements outlined by the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act. The Office of Trade has released a fact sheet explaining this change, as well as a list of the new UOQs replacing the old “X” quantity, on cbp.gov. This information can be accessed by going to: https://www.cbp.gov/document/fact-sheets/tftea-harmonized-tariff-schedule-unit-quantity-change.  Questions about this initiative and how to interpret the new UOQs should be emailed to 484f@cbp.dhs.gov.”

What does this mean?  Some tariff numbers currently have an ‘x’ next to them, which means importers don’t have to report anything on those HTS numbers.  Now all HTS numbers will have a unit of quantity associated to it, in which importers will have to report on.