After Congress failed to renew the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) trade program before its expired on December 31, 2017, the U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has announced that as of April 22, 2018, it will again accept claims for duty-free treatment under the Generalized System of Preferences for goods. Since the GSP trade program expiration date, importers with import goods that would normally be considered duty-free under the GSP trade program have been required to pay duties on their imported goods. With this new announcement from CBP, importers will be able to seek refunds on duties paid during this period of expiration.
CBP has set forth refund processes, in which CBP will automatically liquidate or re-liquidate formal and informal entries of GSP-eligible goods that were entered on or after January 1, 2018 through April 21, 2018 and filed electronically via the Automated Broker Interface (ABI) using special program indicator “A” as a prefix to the listed tariff number. No further action by the filer is required to initiate a retroactive GSP duty refund. CBP expects to begin processes automatic refunds for these entries shortly after April 22.
However, CBP has stated that it will not automatically process GSP duty refunds for the following entry types: 1) formal covered entries that were not filed electronically via ABI, or 2) formal and information covered entries that were filed electronically via ABI with payment of estimated duties but without inclusion of the SPI code “A”. For both of these situations, requests for liquidation or re-liquidation must be made no later than September 19, 2018.
To learn more about GSP eligible countries and goods, click here: GSP