Customs glossary: Mexican vocabulary in the US system

Why this page exists

There is no such thing as a US pedimento. The word names a Mexican document and a Mexican procedure, and it has no counterpart in United States customs practice under any name. Used inside a US filing conversation it produces a search for a document nobody is going to produce.

This matters on the Miami and Puerto Rico lanes more than anywhere, because these are the desks where Spanish-speaking importers and English-speaking filers meet. The fastest way to lose a day is for both sides to be certain they are talking about the same piece of paper.

The equivalences

Only the mappings below are worth trusting, and the US side of each is the side we can stand behind.

And the Puerto Rico vocabulary, which really is local

The island's words are not translation problems, they are the actual names of actual things, and none of them belong to federal customs. Every item below is Hacienda, not CBP, which is exactly why a filer who only knows the federal side has never heard of them.

• IVU: the impuesto sobre ventas y uso, Puerto Rico's sales and use tax, which reaches imports from every origin.
• SURI: the Sistema Unificado de Rentas Internas, Hacienda's online system and the only channel for the import declaration.
• Declaración de Importación, Modelo SC 2970: the declaration itself, required for all imported merchandise including goods exempt from the IVU.
• Levante: the release. The Autorización de Levante de Importaciones, Modelo SC 2015, is what the system generates once the declaration and payment are complete.
• Arbitrios: the separate Subtitle C excise on a specific list of articles, distinct from the IVU.
• Fianza: the bond a merchant posts to defer the IVU to the monthly return, subject to authorization and to the bond's own limit.