U.S. Customs and Border Protection appears to have signaled at least a slight delay in the development of a new system that will ultimately replace the Automated Commercial Environment.
CBP has said that ACE 2.0 will not be a refresh of ACE or a set of incremental changes but instead is intended to be a new system designed to ensure that CBP has the technology to implement the reimagined trade processes developed as part of the 21st Century Customs Framework to align with modern supply chains. CBP states that this system will allow it and its partner government agencies to receive better-quality data much earlier in the supply chain, often in near-real time from traditional as well as non-traditional actors, which will facilitate better, faster, and earlier government responses and determinations on cargo.
In a recent update to the Commercial Customs Operations Advisory Committee, CBP said it anticipates beginning development of ACE 2.0 no sooner than fiscal year 2026 (which begins Oct. 1, 2025), which appears to be somewhat later than the agency had previously anticipated. However, CBP said this timeframe is dependent on whether it receives authorization and funding to proceed with the acquisition and noted that it is still in the early stages of this process. Perhaps meaning to offer additional details, CBP said it has “made significant progress towards an initial milestone that will mark the transition from documenting the need for ACE 2.0 to analyzing approaches for meeting that need.”
In the meantime, CBP continues to work on ensuring the interoperability of ACE 2.0, which means the system will work with a variety of technologies and thus enable the exchange of data with a wider variety of trade entities in near-real time. In the fourth quarter of FY 2023 CBP successfully tested global verifiable credentials and decentralized identifier standards through tech demos of steel and pipeline oil trade that connected CBP with trade users.
In FY 2024 CBP plans to test the ability to issue credentials, verify the origin of credentials, and transmit data to PGAs through tech demos of e-commerce (which will enhance traceability of goods bought and sold online and ensure that importers comply with CBP and PGA requirements), natural gas (which will facilitate origin determinations and prevent goods entering from prohibited countries), and food safety (which will track perishable goods from farm to import, reduce importer waste, and enable identification of packing materials used in shipping food products).
For more information on these developments or ACE 2.0, please contact attorney Lenny Feldman at (305) 894-1011 or via email.
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