Importer of record: who takes responsibility for your import

The importer of record (IOR) makes the customs entry and answers for it. It can file itself or through an agent it authorises in writing, usually a licensed customs broker. US law asks the IOR to use “reasonable care” in what it declares: the value, the classification and the origin.

Amazon describes the role plainly. The IOR makes sure the shipment complies with the law, files the entry with its documents, and pays the duties, taxes and fees.

The owner or the purchaser of the goods can take the role, or a licensed customs broker they designate. For an e-commerce seller that usually means one of three set-ups:

• Your own company, with its own customs bond and broker.
• Your freight forwarder’s company, on a duty paid (DDP) shipment, where its broker and its bond handle the entry.
• A third party that offers importer-of-record services for sellers based outside the US.

Amazon says it will not act as importer for any FBA shipment, of any size or value. A shipment that names Amazon as importer is refused and returned at the shipper’s cost. Amazon is the consignee for FBA deliveries in the US, the place the goods go. The responsibility for the import stays with you or the importer you choose.

A non-US company or person can be the IOR. It needs an importer number: CBP Form 5106 creates one and is filed with the first formal entry. A corporation from outside the US also needs a resident agent in the state of the port of entry, authorised to accept legal papers for it. It also needs a customs bond with a US surety.

If that is more than you want to set up, a duty paid shipment with your forwarder as importer of record is the usual alternative.

Formal entries need a customs bond. That is generally goods worth more than $2,500, and some lower-value goods. As the importer you can hold an annual (continuous) bond that covers all your entries, or buy a single-entry bond for one shipment. On a duty paid shipment the forwarder’s bond covers its own entries.

The ISF for ocean freight is also tied to the importer side; see ISF filing.

Two questions decide it for most sellers:

• Do you want control of the entry: your own broker, your own records, duty you can check line by line? Then be the IOR yourself.
• Do you want one door-to-door price and no customs set-up? Then ship duty paid, with the carrier as importer of record.

• Naming Amazon as importer. The shipment is refused and comes back at your cost.
• Confusing the consignee with the importer. For FBA the consignee is Amazon; the importer is you or your agent.
• Shipping a formal entry with no bond in place, so the goods wait at the port while one is arranged.
• Leaving the importer number for the last minute. Form 5106 goes in with the first formal entry, not after it.
• Declaring a value or a tariff code nobody checked. Reasonable care is the importer’s duty, whoever filled in the form.

The shipment form asks who is the importer: the carrier, or your company. Then it asks whose broker and bond, who files the ISF, and whether duty is in the price. Every carrier bidding prices the same answers, with duty on its own line. See who handles customs at the destination and the DDP calculator.