Foreign Trade Regulations (FTR): Clarification of Filing Requirements Regarding In-Transit Shipments and Other FTR Provisions

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE <CFR>Census Bureau</CFR> <CFR>15 CFR Part 30</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No: 250808-0135]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 0607-AA62</RIN> <SUBJECT>Foreign Trade Regulations (FTR): Clarification of Filing Requirements Regarding In-Transit Shipments and Other FTR Provisions</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> Census Bureau, Department of Commerce. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> The Bureau of the Census (Census Bureau) issues this final rule to clarify its regulations governing in-transit shipments from foreign countries through the United States that are subsequently exported to a foreign destination. Specifically, the final rule addresses the identification of the U.S. Principal Party in Interest (USPPI) in scenarios where goods are entered into the United States for consumption or warehousing and subsequently stored in a warehouse or storage facility, admitted into a Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ), or entered into a bonded warehouse before being exported. The rule establishes clear guidelines for different parties involved in export transactions. For customs brokers serving as the USPPI, the regulation notes obtaining client consent to provide customs entry information for Electronic Export Information (EEI) filing is required per customs regulations. Similarly, when a warehouse, storage facility, FTZ, or bonded warehouse operator acts as the USPPI, they are responsible for the EEI based on information they possess or have received from other parties to the export transaction. Additionally, this final rule revises several regulatory sections, including definitions, mandatory filing requirements, responsibilities of parties to the export transaction, confidentiality protocols, penalty provisions, and voluntary self-disclosure processes to ensure greater clarity, accuracy, and consistency throughout the FTR. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This final rule is effective September 15, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> Epa Uwimana, Chief, Economic Management Division, Census Bureau, 4600 Silver Hill Road, Washington, DC 20233-6010 by email at <E T="03">gtmd.ftrnotices@census.gov</E> . </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Background</HD> The Census Bureau, as delegated by the Secretary of Commerce, is responsible for collecting, compiling, and publishing import and export trade statistics for the United States under the provisions of Title 13, United States Code (U.S.C.), Chapter 9, Section 301(a). Under 13 U.S.C. 302, the Secretary of Commerce is authorized to promulgate regulations necessary or proper to carry out the purposes of and prevent the circumvention of the requirements of Chapter 9 of Title 13. The Secretary also may promulgate regulations covering the confidentiality, publication, and disclosure of information collected under Chapter 9. The Secretary developed the Automated Export System (AES), consistent with Public Law 106-113 and considering the confidentiality requirements of Chapter 9 of Title 13, to collect EEI in concert with the export control and enforcement functions of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) of the Department of Homeland Security, the Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) of the Department of Commerce, and the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) of the Department of State. Public Law 107-228 directed the Secretary to publish regulations requiring exporters to file Shippers' Export Declarations, now referenced as EEI, in the AES. As a result, the Census Bureau is responsible for publishing the FTR that set the export reporting requirements for preparing and filing the EEI in the AES. The EEI is made up of mandatory, conditional, and optional data elements. Under the aforementioned authorities, the Census Bureau is publishing this final rule. The Census Bureau has experienced an increase in the number of inquiries regarding in-transit movements and as a result, the USPPI scenarios defined in the FTR have been amended. Specifically, one scenario was added, and two existing scenarios were revised to add clarity. One of the objectives of this final rule is to revise the FTR to define which party is the USPPI when goods are entered into the United States for consumption or warehousing then stored in a warehouse or storage facility, admitted into an FTZ, or entered into a bonded warehouse before exportation. When these movements occur prior to exportation, the USPPI may be one of the following: a customs broker, or an operator of the warehouse, storage facility, FTZ, or bonded warehouse. When the customs broker is the USPPI and supports the preparation or filing of the EEI with information from the import entry, the customs broker must have consent from the importer of record to disclose confidential information to third parties. When a warehouse, storage facility, FTZ or bonded warehouse operator is the USPPI, they are responsible for the EEI based on information they have or have received from other parties to the export transaction. The Census Bureau is clarifying the language of the existing mandatory EEI filing requirements for exports subject to the Drug Enforcement Administration regulations. The Census Bureau also is revising the list of information that a USPPI and an authorized agent provide in a routed export transaction. The Census Bureau is also clarifying the filing requirements related to specific data elements and the language regarding AES downtime, confidentiality, penalties, and Voluntary Self-Disclosures. Additionally, the Census Bureau is adding one definition, removing one definition, and revising nineteen other definitions in order to ensure the continued collection of complete, accurate and timely trade statistics. Finally, the Census Bureau is making grammatical and style changes in the FTR. Further background discussing need for this regulation is contained in the proposed rule, 89 FR 86762 (Oct. 31, 2024), and is not repeated here. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Department of State concur with the revisions to the FTR as required by Title 13, U.S.C., Section 303, and Public Law 107-228, div. B, title XIV, Section 1404. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Response to Comments</HD> The Census Bureau received 11 letters and emails commenting on the proposed rule. A summary of the comments and the Census Bureau's responses are provided below. 1. <E T="03">Provide resources and training materials to assist with compliance with the FTR.</E> One commenter suggested adding clarity and reducing confusion by providing a consent form template for customs brokers to use to obtain client authorization, examples of U.S. Principal Party in Interest (USPPI) scenarios, a glossary of definitions, guidance on the methods for EEI filing and how a user transitions between those methods, and a detailed user guide or tutorial video to assist with the complex details of the data elements in § 30.6. The Census Bureau currently has resources and training materials available to assist with educating the trade community of the requirements including a glossary of terms in § 30.1(c), a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document that can be amended to add USPPI scenarios, and user guide and video tutorials to address filing in the AES. Additionally, the Census Bureau maintains an International Trade Call Center at 1-800-549-0595 to assist with more complex scenarios. However, the Census Bureau cannot provide a consent form template because the requirement to obtain consent is set by CBP, per 19 CFR 111.24. 2. <E T="03">Amend § 30.1(c) Definitions to ensure clarity.</E> Several commenters suggested the following revisions to the definitions. (a) Cross reference the definition of “USPPI” with the scenarios for a USPPI listed at § 30.3(b)(2). The Census Bureau agrees and made this change. (b) Amend the “Ultimate Consignee” definition to: include that it is the party who ultimately receives the goods, as known at the time of export; amend the reference to the forwarding agent to foreign forwarding agent; and amend the term intermediary. The Census Bureau agrees and made this change. (c) Amend the definition of “Buyer (purchaser)” to state that the goods are purchased from the U.S. Seller. The Census Bureau agrees and made this change. (d) Amend the definition of “Order Party” to be consistent with § 30.2(b)(2)(iii) where the USPPI scenario of an order party is described. The Census Bureau agrees and changed the definition to reference § 30.2(b)(2)(iii) to ensure consistency with the USPPI scenario for an order party. (e) Amend the definition of “Filer” to state that the authorized agent or USPPI is authorized to submit the EEI. This will help clarify that a USPPI must be authorized in a routed export transaction to file. The Census Bureau agrees with amending the definition of Filer; however, we expect to address this in a future routed rule, which will involve additional coordination between the Bureau of Industry and Security and the Census Bureau to ensure consistency between the Export Administration Regulations and FTR. (f) Define the terms “Warehouse” and “Storage Facility” and the distinction between the two terms. The terms “Warehouse” and “Storage Facility” are commonly understood terms. While adding definitions could help distinguish between them, the Census Bureau has concluded that such definitions are unnecessary since these terms are used in their ordinary, plain meaning within this context. <E T="03">Amend § 30.2(d)(1) to clarify that admissions into bonded warehouse/facilities and in-bond movements are not impacted by the proposal.</E> One commenter was concerned that the proposed change to § 30.2(d)(1) may impact their use of the exclusion in that subsection. The Census Bureau's revised language ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 90k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━