In response to President Trump’s executive order directing a broad tightening of customs enforcement measures, U.S. Customs and Border Protection has announced that it will deactivate importer of record numbers in the Automated Commercial Environment that have not been used to file entry in at least a year and have no outstanding post-entry transactions.
However, CBP has also pointed out that there is a process to reactivate IOR numbers that have been deactivated. As a first step, importers should query and verify the current status of the IOR number in their ACE portal account.
CBP states that importers seeking to reactivate their IOR numbers should do so in coordination with their customs broker to avoid potential delays in processing. An Automated Broker Interface broker should submit a transaction processing message with action code A to change the status from “20-Inactive” to “10-Active.” All required CBP form 5106 data elements must be submitted with the TP message.
Importers that are unable to reactive their IOR numbers via ABI may submit a revised CBP form 5106, with all the mandatory data elements filled out, to a center entry specialist team for manual reactivation. The email to which this form is attached must include “IOR reactivation request” in the subject line and explain in the body that the form is being submitted to reactivate an IOR that already exists but is currently in “20-Inactive” status. Once that message is received, the IOR number will be reactivated dependent on the center’s workload.
STR’s Nicole Bivens Collinson notes, however, that due to current backlogs in importers gaining access to their ACE accounts, efforts to reactivate IORs could take up to several weeks. Importers who infrequently use their IORs should therefore act sooner than later to make sure their numbers are active to avoid potential shipment delays.
Click here to register for STR’s July 2 webinar on the customs enforcement EO.
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