Tariffs on goods in transit to Puerto Rico

The problem, in one sentence

The Resident Commissioner's February 2026 letter to CBP describes the routing plainly: "Because Puerto Rico does not receive most international cargo through direct sailings, the vast majority of goods destined for the island must be routed through foreign ports such as Panama or Jamaica, under the same bill of lading and without any change in consignee or commercial intent."

Same bill of lading, same consignee, same commercial intent, and a foreign port in the middle because geography left no other option. When a rule keys on the final leg, that middle port becomes the departure that counts.

What the letter says is happening

On the assessments themselves: "As a result, merchandise that was shipped before the April 2025 cutoff dates, and consigned to Puerto Rico as its final destination, is being assessed significantly higher duties solely because the final leg of the shipment departed a foreign port after the cutoff. Retailers report retroactive assessments, including the 125 percent additional duty on certain goods from China, Hong Kong, and Macau, for merchandise that has already been received and sold, creating significant economic strain."

And on the underlying asymmetry: "Puerto Rico is part of the U.S. customs territory, yet its geographic realities make strict application of the 'final mode of transport' requirement inequitable in practice."

The scale, from the same letter: Puerto Rico "depends on imports for more than 80 percent of its total consumption", and international imports average "approximately $2.6 billion per month". This is not a boutique problem affecting a handful of entries.

What the letter is not

It is a request. Resident Commissioner Pablo José Hernández wrote to CBP Commissioner Rodney S. Scott on 11 February 2026, asking CBP "to issue interpretive guidance or to exercise administrative flexibility ensuring equitable treatment relative to the mainland".

Asking is not receiving. We found no CBP response, no guidance, and no relief. Anybody telling you today that Puerto Rico transshipment has been excepted from the cutoff is describing a letter as though it were a ruling. If your entries are caught by this, they are caught by it right now.

We would rather lose the call than sell you a fix that does not exist. The interpretation is CBP's to change and only CBP can change it.

What a broker can actually do about it

The part that is genuinely open is preservation. If guidance does come, or if a claim is later made, what decides whether you can collect is whether your entries were positioned for it and whether the routing was documented while the documents were still fresh.

• Watch liquidation and preserve protest rights before the door closes. An entry that finally liquidates without a protest is finished regardless of what CBP says afterwards.
• Document contemporaneously that the bill of lading never changed and the consignee never changed, which is the exact fact the equitable argument rests on.
• Position affected entries so that a refund claim can be filed cleanly if guidance is issued, rather than reconstructing the file a year later from carrier records.
• Route future cargo knowing the rule as it is applied today, not as the letter asks for it to be applied.

The honest limit

Nobody can fix this today. What can be lost today is the right to benefit if it is fixed later, and that gets lost quietly, on liquidation dates that pass without anybody looking at them.

Whether your entries are still open is not a general question. It depends on your liquidation dates, what your bill of lading actually says about routing, and when each shipment left both ports. That is a look at your own entry history, and it is a short conversation.