Customs brokerage services
Everything below is filed by a licensed customs broker under our own CBP filer code, EWV. Start with the one that matches your problem, or call and let us match it for you.
Tariff Refunds
Billions of dollars in import duty refunds are flowing right now, and CBP lets exactly two parties file a CAPE claim for them: you as the importer of record, or the licensed customs broker who filed those entries. Most refund routes are wider than that, and we work all of them. Here is every route your money can take back to you, and who is allowed to walk each one.
Customs Clearance
This is the core of what a licensed customs broker does: we prepare and file your entry, pay your duties, work your holds, and get your freight released. We do it under our own filer code, EWV, through our own ACE connection, at any port in the US or Puerto Rico.
Duty Drawback
If you import goods and later export or destroy them, the law refunds up to 99 percent of the duties you paid, and it lets you look back five years from importation. Most importers who qualify never file. This page is the math and the catch, from a drawback company that is actually a licensed customs broker.
ISF Filing
The Importer Security Filing, the 10+2, is due 24 hours before your cargo is laded on the vessel overseas. Not before arrival. Before lading. Get it wrong and the liquidated damages are $5,000 per violation, and more than one violation can attach to a single filing. We file ISFs daily so that arithmetic never becomes yours.
Customs Bonds
Every commercial entry needs a customs bond, the financial guarantee to CBP that duties and obligations get paid. The only real question is which kind: a single transaction bond for one shipment, or a continuous bond covering everything you import for a year. We arrange both and tell you plainly when each one wins.
Customs Exams
CBP can examine any shipment, and when it picks yours the questions come fast: what kind of exam, how long, who pays, and what can anyone do about it. As your licensed customs broker we cannot cancel an exam, and nobody honest will claim they can. What we do is keep your paperwork clean and flowing, because complete documents are the one thing that reliably shortens a hold.
In-Bond and Bonded Moves
In-bond moves let freight travel through the United States before duties are paid: to another port, to a bonded warehouse, to an FTZ, or out of the country entirely. We file the in-bond entries and arrange the bonded transfers, and we make sure you know about the second clock, the one that actually catches people.
HTS Classification
Every duty rate, every trade agreement claim and every special tariff starts from one thing: the ten-digit HTS number on your entry. Get it wrong in one direction and you overpay for years. Get it wrong in the other and you are storing up penalties. Classification is licensed-broker work, and it is some of the most valuable work we do.
Trade Agreements
USMCA, CAFTA-DR, CBTPA and the rest exist to cut your duty bill to zero or near it, but a claim is only as good as the origin analysis behind it. We do the analysis, prepare the certificates of origin, and structure claims that hold up when CBP asks, because a disallowed claim costs more than the duty it saved.
PR Excise Tax and SURI
Freight into Puerto Rico clears twice: once with CBP, and once with Hacienda for the island's excise tax, the arbitrios, declared through SURI. Mainland brokers routinely handle the first half and leave importers stranded on the second. We are a San Juan brokerage. The island side is not an add-on for us; it is home.
AES Export Filing
Most exports over $2,500 per Schedule B line, and any export needing a license, require Electronic Export Information filed in AES before departure. It is the customs entry's outbound twin, with its own codes, its own deadlines and its own penalties. We file it as part of the same relationship that clears your imports.
APHIS Permits
Plants, plant products, wood, seeds, soil and most things that were once alive need clearance from APHIS, the USDA's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service, on top of the customs entry. The permit has to exist before the shipment moves, not after it lands, and that single fact is the one that catches importers out. We handle the permit application, the Lacey Act declaration and the agency side of the entry, in Puerto Rico and at every US port.
Warehousing and Distribution
Clearance ends when CBP releases the cargo. Your problem does not: the container is still on the terminal, free time is running, and something has to move it, store it and deliver it. We handle that side too: storage, the drayage off the terminal and the final delivery, so the release and the move sit in one file with the people who already have your paperwork.
Freight Forwarding Arrangements
A freight forwarder arranges transport. A customs broker files the entry that gets it into the country. They are different licences and different jobs, and most of the delays importers experience live in the gap between them. We are the broker, we arrange the forwarding through partners we work with, and we hold both ends of the file.
Binding Rulings
A binding ruling is CBP telling you, in advance and in writing, how it will classify or treat your goods. Once issued it binds every port of entry, so the decision does not change because the container landed in a different city or a different officer opened the file. For a product you will import repeatedly, it turns the most expensive open question in customs into a settled one.
Duty Payment
Duty gets paid on every entry, and almost nobody decides how. It defaults to whatever the broker set up, which is usually the broker paying CBP and invoicing you. There is a better arrangement available for most importers, it costs nothing to set up, and it improves your cash position by up to about a month. We run electronic payment on every entry we file and we will tell you which arrangement fits.
Government Agency Filings
When a shipment sits, importers call it a customs hold. Usually it is not. It is the Food and Drug Administration, or the Department of Agriculture, or Fish and Wildlife, or one of a dozen other agencies with their own data requirements, their own review times and their own power to stop your goods. We file that data alongside the entry rather than discovering it is missing after arrival, and we represent you with those agencies directly.
Compliance and Recordkeeping
Importers are often surprised to learn that the legal responsibility for a correct entry is theirs, not their broker's. The standard is reasonable care, and CBP expects it to be documented. What that means in practice is a set of records you can produce on request, a classification you can justify, and a process that catches your own errors before an auditor does. We help build that and we keep our half of it.
Choosing between these
I do not know which of these I need. Where do I start?
Start with what you are holding. A container that will not move is customs clearance. A letter with a deadline is in the help section. Duty you think you overpaid is tariff refunds or drawback. A product you have never imported before is HTS classification. If none of those fit, call and describe the shipment in plain words, and we will name the service. That call costs nothing.
What does a customs broker charge per entry?
In the quotes we see, a formal entry commonly runs somewhere between $150 and $400. That is our observation, not a published rate; CBP does not regulate or publish broker fees. And the number on the quote is rarely the whole number: ISF, partner agency filings for FDA or USDA, bond charges and per-line fees for extra HTS codes are usually billed on top. We quote per entry, in advance, with the add-ons named rather than discovered later. Ask any broker for the all-in figure for your actual shipment, not the headline entry fee.
Which of these have to be arranged before my goods ship?
Four of them. The ISF is due 24 hours before loading at origin. A customs bond has to exist before the entry can be filed. APHIS and other permits must be issued before arrival, not applied for after. And the power of attorney has to be signed before we can file anything at all. Everything else on this list can begin once the goods are moving.
Which of these are for exporters rather than importers?
AES export filing is purely an export obligation, and duty drawback is the one that pays exporters back for duty that was paid on the way in. Trade agreements and HTS classification matter in both directions. If you both import and export the same goods, drawback is usually the first conversation worth having.
Do you charge to answer a question, or only to file?
Working out whether you have a claim, which service applies, or whether a notice is serious is part of being your broker, not a billable event. What gets quoted is filing work: entries, refund claims, drawback, classification opinions. If a question turns out to need real research we say so before doing it, not afterwards on an invoice.
Do these come bundled with the entry, or are they billed separately?
Separately, and deliberately. Clearance, ISF, agency filings and bonds are distinct pieces of work with distinct costs, so bundling them into one number hides which part of your import is expensive. You get them itemized. If a quote elsewhere is a single figure with no breakdown, ask what happens to it when a partner agency gets involved.