US customs clearance, start to finish

Legally, no: you are allowed to clear your own goods as the importer of record. Practically, for a commercial ocean shipment, almost everyone uses one, because the entry has to be transmitted electronically into CBP's system, the classification has to be defensible, and the penalties for getting it wrong land on you rather than on whoever advised you. Source Launch Fulfill is not a licensed customs broker and does not file entries. We work with licensed brokers at every US port we use and hand them the entry.

Because duty depends on the HTS classification, and classification depends on material composition, construction, function and sometimes intended use, in a hierarchy of rules that runs to thousands of pages. Two products that look identical can classify differently and pay very different rates. Anyone who gives you a confident duty rate from a picture is guessing, and you carry the consequence of the guess, not them. A licensed broker will classify it properly, and for a genuinely difficult product you can request a binding ruling from CBP in advance.

It used to be that shipments valued under $800 could enter the US duty free under Section 321, which is what a great deal of direct-from-China ecommerce was built on. That exemption is suspended. Low-value shipments now require a formal or informal entry with duty paid. Any guide still assuming free entry under $800 is out of date, and this is worth re-checking with your broker rather than trusting any page, including this one.

Demurrage is charged by the terminal for a container sitting inside the port past its free days. Detention is charged by the carrier for keeping their container outside the port too long after you collected it. Per diem is another name for detention. They run on different clocks and are billed by different parties, which is why people are surprised to receive both. The way to avoid them is a delivery appointment and a trucker arranged before the vessel berths, not after.

No. Selection is CBP's and you will not be told why. An X-ray costs you a delay of days; an intensive exam means the container is trucked to an examination station, unloaded, inspected and reloaded, and can take a couple of weeks. You pay for all of it including the trucking, and you pay it whether or not anything is found. The only real mitigation is a clean, accurate entry, because vague descriptions and mismatched paperwork raise your odds.

Not unless you arranged it. The carrier's liability is capped by law rather than being insurance, and under COGSA that cap is $500 per package. Our page on marine cargo insurance and claims covers the three levels of cover, what all of them exclude, and what general average can cost you on a container that was never damaged.

The party legally responsible to CBP for the entry: the accuracy of the classification and value, the duty, and any penalty. Usually your company. It is not a formality, and it is not something to let a supplier or a freight agent hold on your behalf without understanding what you have given away.

It means the seller is responsible for it, which is not the same as it going away. Some DDP arrangements out of Asia are excellent. Others rely on undervaluation or on someone else's importer of record, and when CBP unwinds one of those it is generally the US business receiving the goods that gets the letter. If you are buying DDP, ask who is named as importer of record and what value is being declared.

For a clean entry with no exam and no PGA involvement, release is often the same day the vessel is available, because the entry was filed before arrival. Add days for a PGA review, and add one to three weeks for an intensive exam. The variable is almost never CBP being slow; it is paperwork that arrived late or did not match.