Trade and National Security Actions and Low-Value Shipments

DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <SUBAGY>U.S. Customs and Border Protection</SUBAGY> DEPARTMENT OF THE TREASURY <CFR>19 CFR Parts 10, 128, 143</CFR> <DEPDOC>[USCBP-2025-0003]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1685-AA02</RIN> <SUBJECT>Trade and National Security Actions and Low-Value Shipments</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> U.S. Customs and Border Protection, Department of Homeland Security; Department of the Treasury. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Notice of proposed rulemaking. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This document proposes amendments to the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) regulations pertaining to the administrative exemption for certain low-value shipments not exceeding $800. Specifically, CBP proposes to make merchandise that is subject to specified trade or national security actions ineligible for this administrative exemption and to require that certain shipments claiming this exemption provide the 10-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) classification of the merchandise. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> Comments must be received by March 24, 2025. </EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">ADDRESSES:</HD> Please submit comments, identified by docket number, by the following method: • <E T="03">Federal eRulemaking Portal:</E> <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> Follow the instructions for submitting comments via docket number USCBP-2025-0003. <E T="03">Instructions:</E> All submissions received must include the agency name and docket number for this rulemaking. All comments received will be posted without change to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov,</E> including any personal information provided. Comments must be submitted in English, or an English translation must be provided. <E T="03">Docket:</E> For access to the docket to read background documents or comments received, go to <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> In accordance with 5 U.S.C. 553(b)(4), a summary of this rule may also be found at <E T="03">https://www.regulations.gov.</E> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Christopher Mabelitini, Director, Intellectual Property Rights & E-Commerce Division, Office of Trade, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, 202-325-6915, <E T="03">ecommerce@cbp.dhs.gov.</E> </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Table of Contents</HD> <EXTRACT> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">I. Public Participation</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">II. Background and Purpose</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Administrative Exemption From Duties and Taxes</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Specified Trade and National Security Actions</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Excepting Merchandise Subject to Specified Trade or National Security Actions From Eligibility for the Administrative Exemption</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Unique Considerations for Applicability to the International Mail Shipments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">III. Discussion of Proposed Amendments</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">IV. Statutory and Regulatory Reviews</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">A. Executive Orders 12866 and 13563</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">B. Additional Requirements for Regulatory Analysis</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">C. Regulatory Flexibility Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">D. Initial Regulatory Flexibility Analysis (IRFA)</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">E. Paperwork Reduction Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP1-2">F. National Environmental Policy Act</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">Signing Authority</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">List of Subjects</FP> <FP SOURCE="FP-2">Proposed Amendments to the CBP Regulations</FP> </EXTRACT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Public Participation</HD> Interested persons are invited to participate in this rulemaking by submitting written data, views, or arguments on all aspects of this notice of proposed rulemaking (NPRM). U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) also invites comments that relate to the economic, environmental, or federalism effects that might result from this proposed rule. Comments that will provide the most assistance to CBP will reference a specific portion of the NPRM, explain the reason for any recommended change, and include data, information, argument, or authority that supports such recommended change. <HD SOURCE="HD2">Regulatory Alternatives</HD> This rulemaking proposes to make imported merchandise subject to certain trade or national security actions ineligible for the administrative exemption found in 19 U.S.C. 1321(a)(2)(C) and to require that certain shipments claiming this exemption provide the 10-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) classification of the merchandise. However, in addition to comments on the above proposals, CBP is also requesting comments on whether these proposals should be extended to bona-fide gifts valued at $100 or less ($200, if the gift is from certain island possessions) sent from persons in foreign countries to persons in the United States and/or certain personal or household articles valued at $200 or less accompanying persons arriving in the United States pursuant to 19 U.S.C. 1321(a)(2)(A) and 19 U.S.C. 1321(a)(2)(B). Moreover, given the unique nature of the international mail shipments in the postal environment as set forth in Section II.D below, CBP is specifically seeking public comments as to the effects of this proposed rulemaking on those shipments into the United States. <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Background and Purpose</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Administrative Exemption From Duties and Taxes</HD> Section 321(a)(2) of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1321(a)(2)), as amended by the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015 (TFTEA), Section 901, Public Law 114-125, 130 Stat. 122 (Section 321), authorizes administrative exemptions from duty and tax imposed on or by reason of importation for three categories of imported articles, when the amount of revenue to be collected is disproportionate to the expense and inconvenience caused to the government. These categories include: bona-fide gifts valued at $100 or less ($200, if the gift is from certain island possessions) sent from persons in foreign countries to persons in the United States; certain personal or household articles valued at $200 or less accompanying persons arriving in the United States; and other imported articles when the value of the article is $800 or less. <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> These exemptions are subject to the condition that the aggregate fair retail value in the country of shipment of articles imported by one person on one day and exempted from duty cannot exceed the authorized amounts. Also, these exemptions are not to be granted if merchandise covered by a single order or contract is forwarded in separate lots to obtain the benefit of duty- and tax-free entry. Finally, these exemptions are also not to be granted in circumstances where regulations prescribe exceptions or limitations on eligibility for these exemptions. Pursuant to Section 321(b), such regulations may be prescribed whenever such action is consistent with the purpose of Section 321(a), or, when “necessary for any reason to protect the revenue or to prevent unlawful importations.” All further references to “the administrative exemption” in this document will be to the administrative exemption found in 19 U.S.C. 1321(a)(2)(C), unless specified otherwise. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  19 U.S.C. 1321(a)(2). Shipments entered under this exemption are also commonly referred to as “ <E T="03">de minimis</E> ” shipments. </FTNT> All merchandise imported into the customs territory of the United States is subject to entry and clearance procedures, unless specifically excepted. These procedures ensure the proper appraisement, valuation, and tariff classification of the merchandise for the purpose of collecting the lawful amount of duties owed, as well as compliance with all other laws and regulations administered and enforced by CBP. Different procedures are provided for the entry and clearance of merchandise depending upon the value of the merchandise. Shipments of merchandise valued at $2,500 or less and entered pursuant to 19 U.S.C. 1498(a)(1)(A) are referred to as “informal entries.” Specifically, 19 U.S.C. 1498(a)(1)(A) authorizes the Secretary of the Treasury  <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> to “prescribe rules and regulations for the declaration and entry of merchandise when the aggregate value of the shipment does not exceed an amount specified . . . by regulation, but not more than $2,500.” Shipments that are eligible for the administrative exemptions at 19 U.S.C. 1321(a)(2) are a subset of the informal entries covered by 19 U.S.C. 1498(a)(1)(A). The statutory framework of 19 U.S.C. 1498 authorizes, in effect, a less formal entry process than under 19 U.S.C. 1484 (referred to as “formal entries”). As a result, informal entry procedures are less burdensome and complex than the formal entry procedures. These simplified procedures reduce the overall administrative burden on informal entry filers. The regulations pertaining to entry of merchandise claiming the exemptions in 19 U.S.C. 1321(a)(2) are found throughout various parts of title 19 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). The informal entry procedures for low-value shipments claiming the administrative exemption under 19 U.S.C. 1321(a)(2)(C) are specifically found in Part 143, subpart C, which cross-reference other regulations establishing eligibility requirements. Pursuant to the current text of 19 CFR 143.23(j), such eligible merchandise must be entered by providing certain information on a bill of lading or a manifest listing each bill. However, the requirements for shipments imported by mail are found in 19 CFR part 145, and the requirements for shipments imported by express consignment operators and carriers are covered by 19 CFR part 128. <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  In accordance with Treasury ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 157k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━