U.S. Customs and Border Protection has issued the rule that puts foreign importers under the same standards as American importers: from January 5, 2027, a foreign importer of record may not bring merchandise into the United States for consumption unless it is validated under the Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (CTPAT) or files its entries through a CTPAT-validated U.S. customs broker. By CBP's own count, 68 percent of foreign importers already use validated brokers — “The remaining 32% of foreign IORs will not be able to continue importing into the United States unless they switch brokers or become CTPAT validated themselves.”
The requirement covers formal entries and the informal entries filed on CBP Forms 3461 and 7501, and from January 5 being a licensed customs broker alone is no longer enough to file on a foreign importer's behalf. Every entry filing must also declare in CBP's ACE system whether the importer is a U.S. or a foreign importer. Under the rule's new Part 110, a U.S. importer is a citizen or lawful permanent resident, or a U.S.-organised company located in the United States whose controlling beneficial owners are at least 51 percent U.S. citizens or permanent residents, or which directly owns a significant amount of unencumbered property in the U.S. An importer or broker that wrongly declares itself a U.S. importer can be forced onto live entry and lose its immediate-delivery privileges.
Brokers must verify from their clients' records whether each client qualifies as a U.S. importer before filing for them, and keep those records for five years; a broker that is not CTPAT-validated must stop filing for a client who turns out to be a foreign importer. Brokers can ask CBP for more time, but all brokers are expected to be in full compliance by May 6, 2027 — and CBP has widened its power to hit brokers with Section 1592 penalties, which can reach the full domestic value of the merchandise.
The rule carries out President Trump's Executive Order 14411, “Strengthening Customs Enforcement,” signed in June, which directed that foreign sellers carry real, enforceable accountability inside the United States. The order directed CBP to eliminate informal entry for foreign importers entirely; the interim rule keeps that route only for CTPAT-verified foreign importers and validated brokers filing for them, and CBP says it is watching — if it identifies risks to revenue, national security or public health, it “will take action to fully prohibit foreign IORs from using informal entry to enter goods for consumption.” The rule is open to public comment until January 5, 2027, the day it takes effect.
For American businesses, the change ends a two-tier system. U.S. importers have always had to meet these standards — reachable inside the country, answerable for duties and penalties — while a foreign seller with no real U.S. presence could ship into the American market and stay out of reach. From January 5, the same validation, the same declarations and the same penalties stand behind every importer, which is the level playing field American importers and manufacturers have asked for, and it means a validated, accountable party stands behind the goods American consumers buy.
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