Your cargo went to General Order

How cargo ends up in General Order

Merchandise for which entry is required will be entered within 15 calendar days after landing from a vessel, aircraft or vehicle, or after arrival at the port of destination in the case of merchandise transported in bond. That is 19 CFR 141.5, and it routes what happens next to the section matching how the freight arrived: 19 CFR 4.37 for vessel cargo, 122.50 for air, 123.10 at the land border.

Where entry of imported merchandise is not made within the time provided by law or regulation, the merchandise may be taken into the custody of the port director and deposited in the public stores or a general order warehouse at the risk and expense of the consignee. That language is from 19 CFR 127.1(a), and the word consignee matters, because in the ordinary case that is the importer of record and the expense is yours from day one.

The reasons are usually mundane. No broker was ever appointed. The power of attorney was never signed. The bond had lapsed. A document sat in somebody's inbox while the free time ran out. None of that moves the clock.

You can still get it back, until it is sold

19 CFR 127.14(b) is the paragraph to know. Merchandise subject to sale may be entered or withdrawn for consumption at any time prior to the sale, upon payment of the duties, any internal revenue tax, and all charges and expenses that may have accrued on it. It holds until the sale actually happens, not until some earlier cutoff.

Two limits arrive in the same sentence. Such merchandise may not be exported without payment of duty, nor entered for warehouse. So shipping it back to the supplier to avoid the duty is not available, and neither is moving it into a bonded warehouse to buy time. It goes to entry for consumption with everything paid, or it stays where it is.

One exception sits in the same paragraph: merchandise abandoned under section 506(1) or 563(b) of the Tariff Act of 1930 is outside this right of redemption.

The clock that is running while it sits

The general order period is the period during which general order merchandise is not subject to sale, and it expires six months from the date of importation. Notice where the count begins. It runs from the date of importation, not from the day the cargo was moved into the GO warehouse, so by the time the notice reaches you a piece of that six months is already gone.

Date of importation has its own definition at 19 CFR 101.1. For merchandise arriving other than by vessel, it is the date on which the merchandise arrives within the customs territory of the United States. For vessel cargo, it is the date on which the vessel arrives within the limits of a port in the United States with intent then and there to unlade.

Merchandise that remains in customs custody for six months from the date of importation, or a lesser period for special merchandise as provided by 19 CFR 127.28(c), (d) and (h), without all estimated duties and storage or other charges having been paid, is considered unclaimed and abandoned under 19 CFR 127.11. Six months is not universal, so on perishables or regulated goods check the shorter period before you plan around half a year.

What happens at the end of it

Once merchandise is unclaimed and abandoned, 19 CFR 127.14(a)(1) directs that it will be sold as provided in subpart C of that part, retained for official use, destroyed, or otherwise disposed of. That is the point at which cargo genuinely disappears, and it is the deadline that outranks every other date on this page.

The same paragraph adds a trigger most importers do not expect. If storage or other charges due the United States have not been paid on merchandise remaining in customs custody after the expiration of the bond period or after the expiration of the general order period, the merchandise will be sold even though any duties due have been paid. Paying the duty and leaving the storage bill open does not save it.

Where we are honest about the limits

If your cargo has already been sold at auction, it is gone. There is no petition that brings it back, and you should be wary of anyone who suggests otherwise. When that is the situation, the useful work moves to the next shipment: a broker and a signed power of attorney in place before the freight lands, so the same thing does not happen twice.

And the storage bill runs the entire time the cargo sits, at the general order warehouse's rates, which are not CBP's rates and are not ours to negotiate. On low value cargo there is a point where the accrued charges pass what the goods are worth, and the honest advice then is to stop paying storage. Speed is the only real lever anybody has here, which is why this is a same day phone call rather than an email somebody gets to next week.

What your paperwork decides

The numbers on this page are the same for everyone. Your answer is not, and it turns on facts we cannot see: the container or air waybill number, the date the freight arrived, which port it is sitting in, whether it moved in bond, whether any duty has been paid, and what the warehouse has already billed. Those decide whether you are early in the general order period or near the end of it.

That is a short call, and it is worth making today rather than next week, because every day of it is on the storage invoice.