How to switch customs brokers

Nobody has you locked in, and here is the proof

The document that connects you to a broker is a power of attorney, and 19 CFR 141.46 describes it in two sentences that are worth reading together. Before transacting Customs business in the name of his principal, a customhouse broker is required to obtain a valid power of attorney to do so. He is not required to file the power of attorney with CBP.

That second sentence is the one nobody quotes, and it explains a lot of confusion. Your POA is not on file anywhere at CBP. There is no lookup, no registry, no list of who holds authority for your importer number. Which means there is also nothing to be trapped by. What exists is a private document between you and a broker.

Duration works the same way, quietly. Under 19 CFR 141.34, powers of attorney issued by a partnership are limited to a period not to exceed 2 years from the date of execution, and all other powers of attorney may be granted for an unlimited period. Note the words may be. Unlimited is permitted, not automatic, so check what your own POA actually says before you assume it runs forever.

Revoking a power of attorney, precisely

19 CFR 141.35 is the operative rule and it is short: any power of attorney shall be subject to revocation at any time by written notice given to and received by CBP, either at the port of entry or electronically.

Two words in that sentence do real work. The notice runs to CBP, not merely to your old broker, so telling the broker you are leaving is a courtesy and a contract matter, not a revocation. And it must be received, not merely sent, so keep the evidence of receipt with the same care you would keep a filing confirmation.

In practice, switching cleanly looks like this, and none of it requires the outgoing broker's cooperation.

• Sign a new power of attorney with the incoming broker.
• Give written notice of revocation to CBP for the old POA, at the port of entry or electronically, and keep proof that it was received.
• Tell the outgoing broker in writing, and settle any open balance, because unpaid charges are the thing most likely to slow a handoff.
• Ask the outgoing broker for copies of your records, and expect a reasonable turnaround rather than an instant one.
• Give the incoming broker your open entries, your bond details and anything already in flight, so nothing lands unclaimed at a port.

Your records: what your old broker holds and what they can say about you

Brokers keep records. Under 19 CFR 111.23(b), records are retained at least 5 years after the date of entry. Powers of attorney get their own treatment: they are retained until revoked, and then for 5 years from the date of revocation, or for 5 years after the client ceases to be an active client, whichever period is later.

Confidentiality is stricter than people expect, which cuts in your favor. 19 CFR 111.24 provides that broker records are confidential and may not be disclosed to any persons other than those clients, plus a defined set: the client's surety on a particular entry, DHS and other officers of the United States, disclosure under subpoena or court order, and disclosure with the client's written authorization. That is the actual scope, and it is worth stating properly rather than shortening it to except to the client.

The practical read for a switching importer: your old broker is not free to discuss your business with a competitor, and your records are yours to request. Ask for them in writing, and make the handoff a documents question rather than a relationship question.

Money owed to you has its own rules, and they are more specific than most importers realize. 19 CFR 111.29(a) requires a broker to pay duty to the Government on or before the due date, to transmit client payments received after the due date within 5 working days from receipt, and to provide a written statement to a client accounting for funds received for the client from the Government within 60 calendar days of receipt. That last one is the sentence to remember if a refund is landing while you are changing brokers: the accounting is owed to you, in writing, on a stated clock.

More than one broker: what is actually established

Two structures get discussed here and they are not equally documented, so we will separate them rather than blur them into a general permission. To be clear about the limit of what we can tell you: CBP has not published a direct answer to the question may I use two brokers at the same time.

What is established on the first structure is negative and still useful. Nothing in 19 CFR 141.34, 141.35 or 141.46 limits an importer to a single power of attorney. Those sections govern duration, revocation and the requirement to hold a POA, and none of them caps the number you may grant. Importers do split work by port, by product line or by mode on that basis. Just know it rests on the absence of a limit rather than on an express permission.

The second structure CBP does expressly permit, through special appointment language in the power of attorney. Per CBP's Broker FAQ, the requirement for brokers to execute a power of attorney directly with a client does not prohibit a Broker A to Broker B relationship, and a client may authorize its broker, Broker A, to allow other brokers, Broker B, to transact any portion of the customs business conducted on behalf of the client. That is agency guidance rather than regulation, and it describes a chain running through your primary broker rather than two direct relationships.

So they are different arrangements with different accountability and different footing, and it is worth being deliberate about which one you are actually setting up rather than discovering the difference when something goes wrong on an entry.

The one limit that matters right now

If part of your reason for switching is the IEEPA tariff refund wave, read this before you move. A new broker cannot file a CAPE claim on entries a different broker filed. CBP accepts a CAPE declaration only from the importer of record itself or from the licensed broker who filed those entries. That restriction is real, it is not a matter of effort or willingness, and any broker who tells you otherwise is guessing.

What a new broker can do on those entries is everything else: confirm which entries are affected, prepare the entry list so that filing it yourself in ACE is mechanical, and work the other refund routes such as protest, post-summary correction and drawback, where a new broker is allowed to act. Our tariff refunds page sets out that whole map rather than repeating it here.

So the honest sequencing advice is that switching brokers and claiming CAPE refunds are two separate projects, and knowing which of your entries fall on which side of that line is a thing to settle before the POA changes hands, not after.

What your own situation decides

How smooth a switch is depends on things we cannot see from here: what your current POA says and when it was executed, whether you have a continuous bond and whose name arranged it, what is in flight right now at which ports, and whether any open entries are carrying issues that should not change hands mid-stream.

Send us those details and we will tell you plainly whether to move everything at once, run parallel for a season, or wait until a particular entry liquidates. Sometimes the answer is wait, and we will say so.