Europe (English)

New customs regulations for shipping to the US

January 1, 2005 - The US Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) is introducing new regulations that apply to all shipments to and through US territory. CBP’s ‘Advanced Cargo Information’ (ACI) regulations affects all FedEx express and freight shipments to the US , Canada and Latin America . You can find further details at www.cbp.gov and reading the Trade Act of 2002 - Advance Electronic Information.


Vague, general, inaccurate or incomplete descriptions should be avoided, as should blank descriptions such as ‘general merchandise’, ‘samples’ and ‘parts’. To give an example, while a description of ‘electronics’ is not detailed enough, descriptions of ‘CD players’ or ‘computer monitors’ are acceptable.


Poor descriptions may result in shipments being held in customs or caged in the US , causing delays to FedEx aircraft and to customer deliveries. Detailed commodity descriptions are important for all express shipments - to the US and worldwide - so time spent completing Air Waybills correctly is time well spent.


At FedEx we do ‘whatever it takes’ to make shipping easy with our free online Shipping Tools including FedEx ® Global Trade Manager for international shipping assistance and FedEx Ship Manager ®.