Julio Rodriguez US Customs Broker
Services
Compliance and Recordkeeping

The standard is reasonable care, and it is yours to meet

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.

The five year rule

Records relating to an import must be kept for five years from the date of entry. That covers entry documents, commercial invoices, packing lists, proof of payment, correspondence with your supplier and anything else that supports what was declared.

The obligation is on the importer of record. A broker keeps its own file, and ours is available to you, but it is not a substitute for yours and no broker's file will satisfy a request made of you.

Reasonable care, in plain terms

It means you took sensible steps to get it right: you classified the goods with some basis rather than copying whatever the supplier wrote, you checked whether a trade agreement claim was actually supported, you told your broker the truth about the goods, and you can show all of that.

It is not a standard of perfection. It is a standard of process, and the absence of one is what turns an honest error into a penalty.

Finding your own mistakes first, and the value of that

Errors happen: a misclassification repeated across two years of entries, a trade agreement claim nobody ever verified, a valuation that omitted an assist or a royalty. Found by CBP, these are penalty cases. Found and disclosed by you, they are usually a much smaller problem.

A prior disclosure made before CBP has started looking substantially limits what you are exposed to. The whole value of it depends on being first, which is why a periodic review of your own entries is worth more than it costs.

What a review actually looks at

Your top classifications by volume and by duty, whether they are supported and whether any would benefit from a binding ruling. Every trade agreement claim, and whether the origin analysis behind it exists. Valuation: assists, royalties, commissions and anything else that should be in the dutiable value and often is not.

Then the mechanics: are records complete for five years, is the bond sufficient for your duty volume, are duties being paid on time, and is anyone at your company actually looking at the entry summaries after they are filed.

If CBP is already asking

A Form 28 request for information, a Form 29 notice of action or a focused assessment all have deadlines, and the response sets the tone for everything after it. We have pages on the first two because they are the notices importers most often receive.

Bring us in early. The cheapest moment to involve a broker in a compliance question is before you answer, not after.

FAQ

How long do I have to keep import records?

Five years from the date of entry, and the obligation is the importer's. That covers entry documents, invoices, packing lists, proof of payment and supplier correspondence.

Is my broker responsible for my entries?

No. The importer of record carries the legal responsibility, and the standard is reasonable care. A good broker helps you meet it and documents its own work, but the duty is yours.

We think we have been classifying something wrong. What now?

Talk to us before CBP raises it. A prior disclosure made before CBP has begun looking substantially limits your exposure, and the value of it depends entirely on being first.

What is reasonable care?

Sensible, documented steps to get the entry right: a classification with a basis, trade agreement claims that are actually supported, accurate information given to your broker, and records that show it. A standard of process, not perfection.

Can you review entries somebody else filed?

Yes. A review of your own recent entries is one of the more useful things an importer can commission, and the errors it finds are cheaper found by you than by an auditor.

Find the problem before CBP does

A review of your recent entries, your classifications and your records, and a plain account of what we find.

Services