Automation of CBP Form I-418 for Vessels

<RULE> DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY <CFR>8 CFR Parts 251 and 258</CFR> <SUBAGY>U.S. Customs and Border Protection</SUBAGY> <CFR>19 CFR Part 4</CFR> <DEPDOC>[Docket No. USCBP-2021-0046; CBP Dec. No. 2X-XX]</DEPDOC> <RIN>RIN 1651-AB18</RIN> <SUBJECT>Automation of CBP Form I-418 for Vessels</SUBJECT> <HD SOURCE="HED">AGENCY:</HD> U.S. Customs and Border Protection, DHS. <HD SOURCE="HED">ACTION:</HD> Final rule. <SUM> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUMMARY:</HD> This rule adopts as final, without change, interim amendments to title 8 and title 19 of the Code of Federal Regulations published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> on December 28, 2021, that require commercial vessel operators to electronically submit the data elements of Form I-418 to U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in lieu of submitting a paper form. This electronic submission streamlines vessel arrival and departure processes by eliminating redundant data submissions, simplifying vessel inspections, and automating recordkeeping. </SUM> <EFFDATE> <HD SOURCE="HED">DATES:</HD> This rule is effective November 17, 2025. </EFFDATE> <FURINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:</HD> For title 8 of the Code of Federal Regulations inquiries, contact Stephen Dearborn, Enforcement Programs Division, Admissibility and Passenger Programs, Office of Field Operations, <E T="03">Stephen.M.Dearborn@cbp.dhs.gov</E> or (443) 765-9751; for title 19 of the Code of Federal Regulations inquiries, contact Brian Sale, Manifest and Security Division, Cargo and Conveyance Security, Office of Field Operations, <E T="03">Brian.A.Sale@cbp.dhs.gov</E> or (202) 325-3338. </FURINF> <SUPLINF> <HD SOURCE="HED">SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD1">I. Background</HD> The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), including U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), regulations require commercial vessels and their operators  <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> to meet several data submission requirements when arriving in the United States from a foreign place or outlying possession of the United States and when departing the United States for a foreign place or outlying possession of the United States. Both CBP and the USCG collect information in these contexts, and many of the data elements that the two agencies collect overlap. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> While some of this data must be submitted electronically, CBP previously required certain data to be submitted on paper, such as the Form I-418, Passenger List—Crew List (Form I-418). DHS and CBP amended the applicable regulations in an interim final rule (IFR) published on December 28, 2021 (86 FR 73618). The interim regulations require commercial vessel operators to submit the data elements of Form I-418 electronically, instead of in a paper format, in an effort to streamline the vessel arrival and departure processes, simplify vessel inspections, and automate recordkeeping for Form I-418. <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  For the purposes of this document, “operators” include masters or commanding officers, or authorized agents, owners, or consignees. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  The USCG requires commercial vessel operators to submit either a Notice of Arrival (NOA) or Notice of Departure (NOD) to the National Vessel Movement Center (NVMC) through its electronic Notice of Arrival/Departure (eNOA/D) system or via email in advance of U.S. arrival or departure. <E T="03">See</E> 33 CFR 160.201-160.216. In addition to other data elements, each NOA/NOD must include information on the crew and passengers on board the vessel. <E T="03">See</E> 33 CFR 160.206(a). Upon satisfactory submission, USCG processes the information via the eNOA/D web portal and then the system automatically transmits it to CBP as an Advance Passenger Information System (APIS) manifest for arrivals. An APIS manifest is a CBP pre-arrival requirement. <E T="03">See</E> 8 CFR 231.1(a) and 19 CFR 4.7b. </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">II. Adoption of the Interim Final Rule</HD> Although the interim regulations were promulgated as a procedural rule, and thus exempt from prior notice and comment requirements, CBP provided the public with the opportunity to comment on the rule and stated that CBP would consider the comments before adopting the interim regulations as a final rule. 86 FR 73624. The prescribed comment period closed on February 28, 2022, sixty days after the IFR published in the <E T="04">Federal Register</E> . No comments were received in response to the solicitation of public comments. Accordingly, CBP has decided to adopt the IFR published at 86 FR 73618 on December 28, 2021, without change. <HD SOURCE="HD1">III. Statutory and Regulatory Reviews</HD> <HD SOURCE="HD2">A. Executive Orders 12866, 13563, and 14192</HD> Executive Orders 12866 (Regulatory Planning and Review) and 13563 (Improving Regulation and Regulatory Review) direct agencies to assess the costs and benefits of available regulatory alternatives and, if regulation is necessary, to select regulatory approaches that maximize net benefits. Executive Order 13563 emphasizes the importance of quantifying both costs and benefits, reducing costs, harmonizing rules, and promoting flexibility. Executive Order 14192 (Unleashing Prosperity Through Deregulation) directs agencies to significantly reduce the private expenditures required to comply with Federal regulations and provides that “any new incremental costs associated with new regulations shall, to the extent permitted by law, be offset by the elimination of existing costs associated with at least 10 prior regulations.” The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has not designated this rule a “significant regulatory action,” under section 3(f) of Executive Order 12866. Accordingly, OMB has not reviewed it. This final rule is considered a deregulatory action under Executive Order 14192. We estimate that this rule generates $18.4 million in net annualized cost savings at a 7% discount rate, discounted relative to year 2024, over a perpetual time horizon. <HD SOURCE="HD3">1. Purpose of Rule</HD> Current statutes and regulations require commercial vessels and their operators  <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> to meet several data submission requirements for arrival at and departure from a U.S. port of entry (POE). The U.S. Coast Guard (USCG) requires commercial vessel operators to submit a Notice of Arrival (NOA) to the agency's National Vessel Movement Center (NVMC)  <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> through its electronic Notice of Arrival/Departure (eNOA/D) system or via email in advance of U.S. arrival. <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> Each NOA must include arriving vessel, voyage, cargo, crew, longshore work, passenger, operational equipment condition, international safety management status, and cargo declaration information. <SU>6</SU> <FTREF/> Upon satisfactory submission, USCG processes the information via the eNOA/D web portal and then the system automatically transmits it to CBP as an Advance Passenger Information System (APIS) manifest. <SU>7</SU> <FTREF/> An APIS manifest is a CBP pre-arrival data submission requirement. <SU>8</SU> <FTREF/> CBP uses this electronic manifest to assess arrivals for security risks and to prepare for inspections. <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  For the purposes of this document, commercial vessels include cargo vessels, cruise ships, and other vessels used for commercial purposes. For the purposes of this analysis, “operators” include masters or commanding officers, or authorized agents, owners, or consignees. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  USCG established the NVMC in 2001 to operate as a single clearinghouse for the submission and processing of notice of arrival and departure information for vessels entering and departing U.S. ports and facilities. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 33 CFR 160.201-160.216. When a vessel operator is in an area without internet access or experiences technical difficulties, and he or she has no shore-side support available, the vessel operator may fax or phone the submission to the NVMC. </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>6</SU>  See 33 CFR 160.206(a). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>7</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 70 FR 17820 (Apr. 7, 2005). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>8</SU>   <E T="03">See</E> 8 CFR 231.1(a) and 19 CFR 4.7b. </FTNT> Prior to the implementation of the interim final rule (IFR), CBP generally required commercial vessel operators to submit paper copies of their manifest using Form I-418 at their time of arrival at a U.S. POE in addition to providing manifest data electronically prior to arrival. <SU>9</SU> <FTREF/> CBP mainly used the paper Form I-418 for crew and passenger admissibility inspections and processing. Cruise ship operators arriving at some POEs could submit just the two signature pages of their paper Form I-418  <SU>10</SU> <FTREF/> and a compact disk (CD) of their passenger and crew manifest in lieu of submitting numerous pages of manifest data by paper to CBP. <SU>11</SU> <FTREF/> If a manifest has changed during coastwise movement, commercial vessel operators must update their APIS manifest electronically through the eNOA/D system. A CBP officer at the coastwise port would typically update the vessel's original paper Form I-418 with any changes. To comply with some customs regulations, commercial vessel operators could also submit Form I-418 with CBP Form 5129: Crew Member's Declaration in lieu of submitting a Crew's Effects Declaration on CBP Form 1304 per 19 CFR 4.7a. However, CBP generally collects Form 1304 instead to meet the requirements of 19 CFR 4.7. <SU>12</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>9</SU>  86 FR 73618 (Dec. 28, 2021). Prior to the February 28, 2022 effective date of the IFR, 8 CFR 251.1 and 8 CFR 251.5 specified that “the master or commanding officer, or authorized agent, owner, or consignee, of a commercial vesse ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 59k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━