CBP To Postpone Duty Payments By 90 Days For Eligible Import Entries

On Sunday, April 19^th, the White House issued an Executive Order entitled “Executive Order on National Emergency Authority to Temporarily Extend Deadlines for Certain Estimated Payments.”

Following the publishing of this EO, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) issued CSMS #42423171 – COVID-19 – 90 Day Postponement of Payment for the Deposit of Certain Estimated Duties, Taxes, and Fees.

What Is It?

CBP is postponing duty payments for eligible entries from eligible importers by 90 days for

• Entries from March and April 2020 which have not yet been paid.
• This includes March entries to be paid in April’s Periodic Monthly Statement (PMS) and any eligible entries between now and April 30^th which are to be paid by single check, daily statement or Periodic Monthly Statement in May.

What Are The Eligible Entries?

Essentially, the major exclusions from this postponement are any entries with antidumping/countervailing (ADD/CVD) duties or entries with trade remedy duties under Sections 201, 232 (steel and aluminum) and 301 (China, EU/Airbus dispute).

Entries that are straight-up type consumption entries with column 1 duties not subject to additional trade actions are what are primarily eligible.

What Is An Eligible Importer?

CBP laid out that the program applies to importers who are suffering “significant financial hardship.” CBP’s definition of this per the CSMS message is:

“An importer will be considered to have a significant financial hardship if the operation of such importer is fully or partially suspended during March 2020 or April 2020 due to orders from a competent governmental authority limiting commerce, travel, or group meetings due to COVID-19, and as a result of such suspension, the gross receipts of such importer for March 13-31, 2020 or April 2020 are less than 60 percent of the gross receipts for the comparable period in 2019.”

What Is The Deadline?

Unfortunately, for our importers who pay by PMS, we have until 11:59 PM ET tonight to change March PMS entries. We will also be reviewing our daily statements to see what can be moved as well.

To say that this has set us scrambling with a little over 24 hours from the time of the announcement to the deadline for a large number of entries is an understatement. Our customs brokerage department are making this their primary focus this morning. We ask that you please reach out to your TOC account manager for more details and to let us know if your company is interested or believes it is eligible for this 90-day postponement program.