December ACE Schedule Moves Up Target Date for de Minimis Bond Validations in ACE

According to CBP's ACE development schedule for December, the target date for the enhancement, "Low Value Shipments Safekeeping (LVSS) Specific Instruction Bond," has been moved to July from the October date that CBP provided last month. CBP said the enhancement will enable its officers to verify active bonds in ACE as well as "add bond validations." It also said the enhancement might have EDI impacts.

The change in target date comes as CBP said earlier this week in a Federal Register notice that it's seeking Office of Management and Budget approval to update CBP Form 301 instructions to add reference to a new collection, under activity code 21 for an LVSS bond (see 2412230004).

"All arriving air carriers and parties who currently or who seek to operate a facility other than an Express Consignment Carrier Facilities that is or will be used to process shipments for which the Section 321 exemption is claimed, either through the submission of Type 86 entries or for entry by presenting the manifest ... are required to have an LVSS bond on file" in ACE, CBP said in the Dec. 23 notice. "This bond also will be a requirement for all applicants for newly established facilities used to process shipments for which the Section 321 exemption is claimed."

CBP also said in that notice that it estimates around 700 responses total from the information collection and that instructions would be provided in CBP's customs bulletin.

"The LVSS bond will be required by the Commissioner and Notice of Specific Instruction will be published in the Customs Bulletin," CBP said in the Federal Register notice. "The CBP Form 301 will not be used to collect the bond information, however the instructions will point the public to the Customs Bulletin where they can find the approved bond terms, conditions, and form."

In addition to moving up the target date for adding bond validations, CBP also indicated in December's notional development and deployment schedule that it has updated language within the third phase of implementing Section 321 de minimis requirements in ACE.

The third phase, which has a target date of "no sooner than" Feb. 11, now calls for CBP to withhold release of ineligible shipments in ACE to enforce the $800/day threshold. This is in contrast to November's schedule, in which CBP said it would "reject" ineligible shipments in ACE to enforce the $800 threshold.

Meanwhile, plans to implement phase 2 of Section 321 de minimis validation in ACE are still set to occur on Jan. 11.

According to CBP, other updates include the following:

• Updated the target date for when the agency expects to replace the Trade Export Data universe with the Automated Export Systems data universe in ACE Reports. CBP set a target date of Jan. 23.
• Defined Feb. 15 as the target date for when CBP will deploy the 1X Automated Transfer to Exam for Air Cargo, which CBP says will enhance the 1X coding in the air environment to facilitate the movement of held cargo.
• Changed the description of the enhancement "Automated Rejection of Insufficient Manifest Cargo Descriptions" to clarify that the enhancement would "implement the automated rejection of insufficient cargo descriptions and consignee information for ACE manifest filings and ACE Cargo Release entries." CBP last month said the enhancement would "implement the automated rejection of insufficient manifest cargo descriptions." The target date for this enhancement is unchanged and set for September.

CBP conveyed that the December ACE schedule was publicly available, via a Dec. 26 cargo systems message.