COAC's De Minimis Working Group Seeks Clarity on Date of Arrival Specifics

The Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee (COAC) De Minimis Working Group developed a set of recommendations to CBP to provide further details on how the agency expects to enforce the $800 limit in ACE, including clarity on how CBP plans to calculate a shipment's date of arrival.

The working group's request comes in the form of a list of 27 recommendations that the group presented to CBP at the Dec. 11 quarterly COAC meeting. Recommendations, and any other items of business, couldn't be voted on during the COAC meeting since there wasn't a quorum present (see 2412110049).

Recommendations include dealing with "how the date of arrival definition will impact the $800 per day enforcement, and separately, how we need to have FAQs fully developed and responded to before the enforcement date starts with respect to date of arrival," said COAC member Travis Skinner, speaking on behalf of the De Minimis Working Group.

Acting CBP Commissioner Troy Miller noted during the meeting that Jan. 11 is the date that CBP will be deploying an automated warning message in ACE alerting filers when a single consignee is expected to exceed the daily de minimis threshold. The agency may begin rejecting shipments for exceeding the limit as soon as 30 days after that.

"Our message to the trade [is] 'Get ready for this automation. Your preparation will pay off and will help us triage real threats more effectively,'" Miller said.

The de minimis working group suggested concerns be addressed through a series of frequently asked questions or fact sheets to the trade community that should be presented to the public prior to initiating the enforcement of the $800 per person and per day regulation. This information should come out before CBP starts giving advanced warning messages, the working group recommended.

The FAQs are "essentially [classified] in four buckets: threshold questions, messaging and manifest questions, modes of transportation questions and in-bond questions," Skinner said.

Skinner also said the De Minimis Working Group had a "very, very busy quarter," with a total of 11 meetings, including some with CBP.

In the de minimis working group's paper for the COAC meeting, the working group noted that several CBP offices, including Cargo and Conveyance Security, the Manifest Conveyance Security Division, the Trade Policies and Programs within CBP's Office of Trade, the Trade Transformation Office and the Office of Trade Relations have been meeting with the newly developed COAC De Minimis Automation Task Force to discuss the deployment of the $800 aggregate.

Miller said during Wednesday's meeting that this task force is helping CBP understand the technical flow from an industry perspective.

"Initially, we'll use informed compliance and let filers decide how to proceed. This period will let us test our systems together, raise awareness among importers and other supply chain actors, and give industry time to adjust their own systems," Miller said.

The de minimis working group was not the only one that supplied recommendations to CBP during Wednesday's COAC meeting.

The Trade Partnership and Engagement Working Group within the Secure Trade Lanes Subcommittee offered four recommendations related to Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (CTPAT) procedures. These recommendations also couldn't be voted on.