New Rules on Split Shipments

Jun. 2, 2006

On June 2, 2006, Customs published a notice in the Federal Register adopting certain amendments to the Customs regulations to allow importers to submit a single entry to cover multiple portions of a single entity which, due to its size or nature, arrives in the United States on separate conveyances. These new rules will be effective from July 3, 2006, and will be incorporated at 19 C.F.R. 141.51, 141.58, 142.21, and 142.22. 

The current regulations ordinarily require that all merchandise arriving on one conveyance and consigned to one consignee be included on one entry.  Recognizing that negative tariff consequences have repeatedly occurred for merchandise that is unavoidably split onto multiple conveyances, Congress passed legislation in 2000 for Customs to provide for treatment of certain multiple shipments as a single entry.  The first of these exceptions was implemented in 2003 under 19 C.F.R. 141.57, and provides for single-entry treatment for split shipments that are intended to be carried on one conveyance but are divided at the initiative of the carrier.

With the newly added 19 C.F.R. 141.58, a second exception will provide single-entry treatment for certain unassembled or disassembled merchandise, regardless of the party that initiates the split.  In order to qualify for this exception, the following conditions must be met:

(1)        The subject shipment is not capable of being transported on a single conveyance, but is purchased, invoiced and classified under a single HTSUS provision as a single entity;

(2)        The arriving portions of the shipment are consigned to the same person in the United States; and

(3)        The portions covered under the entry arrive directly from abroad at the same port of importation in the United States within 10 calendar days of the date of the portion that arrives first.