FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

What is CustomsGenius?

CustomsGenius is a U.S. trade compliance software platform built by eCompliance, Inc. in Houston, Texas. It helps importers, customs brokers, and trade compliance teams calculate tariffs, monitor trade-policy changes, recover overpaid duties, and assess audit risk. Its tools are Trade Radar, the Tariff Calculator, IEEPA Recovery, ACE Analyzer, Interest Calculator, and Risk Assessment.

Who is CustomsGenius built for?

CustomsGenius is built for U.S. importers of record, licensed customs brokers, in-house trade compliance teams, trade attorneys, and freight forwarders. Importers use it to quantify duty exposure and recover overpayments; brokers, law firms, and consultants use it to analyze client entry portfolios at scale.

Is CustomsGenius a law firm or customs broker?

No. CustomsGenius is a technology platform. It does not provide legal advice, file entries as a customs broker, or represent importers in court. It helps you and your broker or counsel identify, quantify, and prioritize duty savings and compliance issues, and it works closely with a team of former CBP auditors.

What data does CustomsGenius need to get started?

Most tools run on a standard ACE entry summary line export, the ES-003 report, which takes about two minutes to pull from CBP’s ACE portal (step-by-step guide). The platform also accepts CF-7501 entry summaries and broker system exports. If you do not have ACE portal access yet, CustomsGenius walks you through the setup at intake.

How much does CustomsGenius cost?

CustomsGenius has two plans. The Importer plan is full-service duty-refund recovery priced as a success fee of at most 3% of recovered duties, discounted at volume: no recovery, no fee. The Trade Professional plan is usage-based for brokers, law firms, and trade consultants: the first 100 entry lines are free, then $0.35 per entry line for the first 10,000 lines per importer and $0.10 per line after that, with no platform fees, seat fees, or minimums. Trade Radar and the single-shipment Tariff Calculator are free. See pricing.

Is my import data secure?

Yes. All data is encrypted in transit (TLS 1.3) and at rest (AES-256), stored in access-controlled, U.S.-based cloud infrastructure, with role-based permissions and multi-factor authentication enforced on paid and privileged accounts. CustomsGenius never shares, sells, or uses your import data for any purpose outside your engagement.

Where does CustomsGenius get its tariff data?

Tariff rates are ingested continuously from primary government sources: the U.S. International Trade Commission’s Harmonized Tariff Schedule, CBP’s Cargo Systems Messaging Service (CSMS), and Federal Register notices and presidential proclamations. One rate engine powers every tool, and its output is validated against CBP’s own final liquidation outcomes. The method, tolerances, and current agreement numbers are published on the methodology page.

How do I start using CustomsGenius?

Trade Radar and the Tariff Calculator are self-serve: create a free account at app.customsgenius.com with Google, Microsoft, or an email code. IEEPA Recovery, ACE Analyzer, Interest Calculator, and Risk Assessment are available by demo request: book a 30-minute call and the team will set you up.

What is Trade Radar?

Trade Radar is a free tariff and trade-policy alert service from CustomsGenius. Instead of forwarding every government notice, it matches each new policy action against the HTS codes and origin countries in your own import records, so you only see alerts that touch your business.

How does Trade Radar know which alerts affect my imports?

You upload an ACE ES-003 entry summary report once. Trade Radar keeps the distinct HTS codes and origin countries from it and prefix-matches every new tariff or trade-policy action against them. The file is parsed in your browser, and only the distinct codes and countries are stored.

Which sources does Trade Radar monitor?

Trade Radar tracks CBP’s Cargo Systems Messaging Service (CSMS), the Federal Register, and White House proclamations and executive orders. Alerts arrive in the CustomsGenius feed and an optional daily 8 a.m. ET email digest; critical changes send immediately.

Is Trade Radar free?

Yes. The Trade Radar feed and daily digest are free and standalone. No credit card is required.

What is the CustomsGenius Tariff Calculator?

The Tariff Calculator is a free tariff calculator. Enter an HTS code, country of origin, and shipment value, and it returns the full duty stack: the MFN base rate, every applicable trade-remedy surcharge, the merchandise processing fee (MPF), the harbor maintenance fee (HMF), and total landed cost.

Which tariff programs does the Tariff Calculator cover?

As of July 2026 it covers the Section 232 consolidated metal regime (HTSUS headings 9903.82.01 through 9903.82.26, which apply 10% to 50% duties to the full customs value of steel, aluminum, and copper articles and derivatives from all countries), the separate Section 232 programs for autos, medium- and heavy-duty vehicles, semiconductors, and softwood timber, Section 301 duties including the 25% action on Brazilian goods effective July 22, 2026, antidumping and countervailing duty exposure, the temporary 10% Section 122 surcharge (HTSUS 9903.03.01, in force February 24 through July 24, 2026), and historical IEEPA rates for entries dated before February 24, 2026.

How do tariff surcharges stack on top of each other?

Trade remedies are cumulative unless a specific carve-out applies. Section 232 duties stack on top of the column-1 MFN rate, Section 301 duties, and any antidumping or countervailing duties. The carve-outs interact in non-obvious ways: for example, goods actually paying Section 232 duty are exempt from the Section 122 surcharge, but goods entered under zero-rated Section 232 lines still owe it. The simulator applies these interactions automatically for the entry date you choose.

Can the Tariff Calculator calculate duties for past entry dates?

Yes. The rate engine is date-aware: it applies the tariff schedule in force on the entry date you specify. A February 2026 entry from China still resolves the IEEPA rates that applied then, while a July 2026 entry gets the current Section 232 and Section 301 stack.

Is the Tariff Calculator free?

Yes. You can run three calculations with no account, or create a free account for five per month. No credit card is required. Bulk calculation across a whole ACE entry file is part of the paid CustomsGenius app.

What happened to the IEEPA tariffs?

On February 20, 2026, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6–3 in Learning Resources, Inc. v. Trump that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize tariffs. An executive order the same day terminated all seven IEEPA tariff executive orders, and CBP deactivated the IEEPA HTSUS numbers effective 12:00 a.m. Eastern time on February 24, 2026. Roughly $166 to $175 billion in IEEPA duties collected across about 53 million entries became potentially refundable.

Are IEEPA duty refunds automatic?

Partly. Under the Court of International Trade’s universal order in Atmus Filtration, Inc. v. United States (March 4, 2026), CBP must liquidate unliquidated entries without IEEPA duties and reliquidate liquidated-but-not-final entries without them. CBP processes the refunds through the CAPE program in ACE: Phase 1 opened April 20, 2026 for unliquidated and recently liquidated entries, and Phase 2 opened June 29, 2026 for reconciliation-flagged entries. In practice, importers still need to verify that every eligible entry is captured, that refund amounts are correct, and that nothing becomes final without a claim.

Which entries can still get an IEEPA refund, and what are the deadlines?

Entries that paid IEEPA duties and are not yet final are recoverable. Once an entry liquidates, the importer has 180 days to protest under 19 U.S.C. § 1514; an entry whose protest window has closed is final and outside the reach of the CIT order. Because entries liquidate on a rolling basis, deadline tracking matters more than anything else in IEEPA recovery.

Are Section 301 or Section 232 duties refundable under the same ruling?

No. The Supreme Court’s ruling applied only to tariffs imposed under IEEPA. Section 301 duties (Trade Act of 1974) and Section 232 duties (Trade Expansion Act of 1962) rest on different statutory authority and remain in effect.

How does the IEEPA Recovery tool work?

IEEPA Recovery ingests your ACE ES-003 entry data, identifies every line that paid IEEPA duties, computes the net recoverable amount after MFN discounting, tracks each entry’s liquidation status and protest deadline, and calculates statutory interest under 19 U.S.C. § 1505(c). It is available by demo request.

What is the ACE Analyzer?

The ACE Analyzer turns a raw ACE entry summary line export (ES-003) into decision-ready analysis: recovery rollups that aggregate refund opportunities, reconciliation rollups, and duty-variance analysis across an entire entry portfolio.

What is duty-variance analysis?

Duty-variance analysis compares the duty actually filed with CBP on each entry line against the duty CustomsGenius independently computes for the same HTS code, origin, value, and entry date. Variances surface both overpayments, which are refund opportunities, and underpayments, which are compliance exposure to fix before CBP finds them.

What files does the ACE Analyzer accept, and how large can they be?

It accepts standard ACE ES-003 Excel exports. The pipeline is built for broker-scale data: portfolios from a few hundred entry lines to millions of lines process without manual splitting.

How is the ACE Analyzer different from the Tariff Calculator?

The Tariff Calculator prices one shipment at a time; the ACE Analyzer runs the same rate engine across your entire filed history at once. Use the simulator to plan a future import, and the analyzer to audit what was actually filed.

What does the Interest Calculator compute?

The Interest Calculator computes CBP interest the way CBP computes it: for CAPE refunds, formal reconciliation entries, and prior disclosures, using CBP’s published quarterly interest rates. Its output is validated against interest figures CBP itself has issued.

Can it handle a whole spreadsheet of entries or a statistical sample?

Yes. It runs in four modes: a single entry, a spreadsheet of many entries, a statistical sample projected to a full population, or a saved CustomsGenius report.

Why does interest math matter in a prior disclosure?

A prior disclosure under 19 U.S.C. § 1592(c)(4) requires tendering the underpaid duties plus interest. Getting the interest wrong in either direction is costly: underpay and the disclosure may be treated as incomplete; overpay and you leave money on the table. Computing it CBP’s way, quarter by quarter, removes that risk.

What is the CustomsGenius Risk Assessment?

Risk Assessment is an importer-level compliance review built from your own ACE data. It produces an interactive Excel workbook with 18 analysis tabs (PivotTables, charts, and slicers) plus a printable narrative report with an executive summary, financial overview, country and HTS activity, trade-remedy exposure, and a data-derived risk classification.

What does the Risk Assessment examine?

The same things CBP examines: valuation, HTS classification, country of origin, related-party transactions, special program indicator (SPI) and free trade agreement claims, antidumping and countervailing duty exposure, and Section 232 and Section 301 duty treatment.

Does it screen for AD/CVD evasion risk?

Yes. An antidumping and countervailing duty evasion screen flags the patterns CBP’s own targeting looks for: manufacturer and export-country mismatches, entries missing an expected AD/CVD case number, and incorrect entry types.

How do I know the Risk Assessment is any good?

Its methodology is benchmarked deliverable-for-deliverable against manual import analyses performed by former CBP auditors, and CustomsGenius works with a team of former CBP auditors to build and review it.

Why is CBP scrutiny of importers increasing in 2026?

Tariffs are now a major federal revenue line, and CBP enforcement has scaled with them. The 2025 and 2026 tariff expansions layered multiple overlapping duty programs onto ordinary goods: Section 232 metal duties now apply at 10% to 50% to the full customs value of hundreds of derivative product categories, on top of Section 301 and AD/CVD. A single misclassified line can understate duty by up to half the customs value, so more programs, higher rates, and revenue pressure translate into more CF-28 inquiries, audit surveys, and Focused Assessments.

What triggers a CBP audit?

Common triggers include duty rates that look low against peer importers of the same HTS codes, sudden classification or origin shifts right after a tariff action, mismatches between filed data and other government data, high volume in trade-remedy-heavy product categories, prior violations, and referrals. See What Triggers a CBP Audit for a detailed breakdown.

What is the difference between a CBP Audit Survey and a Focused Assessment?

An Audit Survey is a limited-scope questionnaire-and-sampling exercise CBP uses to decide whether a full audit is warranted. A Focused Assessment is the full audit: a comprehensive review of your import compliance program by CBP’s Office of Regulatory Audit. Treat a survey letter seriously, because what you send back determines whether it escalates. See CBP Audit Survey vs Focused Assessment.

What does a Focused Assessment actually examine?

CBP tests internal controls and samples entries across defined risk areas: entered value (including assists, related-party pricing, and freight and insurance deductions), HTS classification, country of origin, special program and FTA claims, antidumping and countervailing duty applicability, Section 301 and Section 232 treatment, and recordkeeping. Where controls are weak, CBP expands testing. See How the Focused Assessment Works.

What are CBP Forms 28 and 29?

A CF-28 (Request for Information) asks the importer to substantiate something on an entry: classification, valuation, or origin. A CF-29 (Notice of Action) tells you CBP intends to change the entry, or already has, usually raising duty. A CF-28 is often the first visible sign an importer is being looked at, and a pattern of them across your entries is a strong signal to self-review before it escalates.

What penalties can importers face under 19 U.S.C. § 1592?

Section 1592 penalties scale with culpability. Negligence: up to 2 times the unpaid duties, or 20% of dutiable value for non-revenue violations. Gross negligence: up to 4 times the unpaid duties. Fraud: up to the full domestic value of the merchandise. The unpaid duties themselves are owed on top, and CBP can generally reach back five years (19 U.S.C. § 1621), so a recurring classification error compounds quickly.

What does “reasonable care” require of importers?

Since the Customs Modernization Act, the importer of record, not the broker, is legally responsible for using reasonable care in classifying, valuing, and declaring the origin of imported goods. In practice that means documented procedures: how classifications are assigned and reviewed, how declared values are built, how origin is verified, and evidence that the procedures are actually followed. “My broker handled it” is not a defense.

What is a prior disclosure, and when should I file one?

A prior disclosure under 19 U.S.C. § 1592(c)(4) is a voluntary report of a violation to CBP made before, or without knowledge of, the start of a formal investigation. It caps penalties dramatically: for negligence or gross negligence, to the interest on the unpaid duties. File when you have found a genuine error with duty impact: disclose the circumstances, quantify the loss of revenue, and tender the duties plus interest. Timing matters, because once CBP commences an investigation and you know about it, the window closes.

How long do import records need to be kept?

Five years from the date of entry, under 19 U.S.C. §§ 1508 and 1509: entry documents, commercial invoices, proof of payment, origin support, and anything else that backs the declared facts. CBP can demand them in an audit or a recordkeeping inquiry, and missing records carry their own penalties even when the underlying entries were accurate.

What deadlines should every importer track?

Four clocks run on every entry. Liquidation: entries are deemed liquidated one year after entry under 19 U.S.C. § 1504(a), and CBP can extend up to four years. Protest: 180 days after liquidation under 19 U.S.C. § 1514; after that the entry is final. Post-summary correction: available only before liquidation. Reconciliation: 12 months from entry for FTA issues and 21 months for other issue types, with no extensions. Missing a window converts a fixable issue into a permanent one, in either direction.

How do I self-audit before CBP does?

Run the same tests CBP would run. A post-entry audit works a sample of your entry lines through the audit question set: importer of record, classification, origin, valuation, related-party pricing, SPI claims, AD/CVD, Section 301 and 232 treatment, and recordkeeping. An importer-wide risk assessment then quantifies where the duty exposure concentrates. CustomsGenius automates both from your ACE data.

Should refund claims be double-checked before filing?

Yes. A refund claim is an affirmative statement to CBP, and bad claims invite scrutiny of everything else you file. Verify the math against the rates actually in force on each entry date, confirm the entry is still within its correction window, and keep the substantiation. The same duty-variance analysis that finds overpayments also catches claims you should not make.

When do I need a trade attorney versus a broker versus software?

Software is for scale and detection: finding the issues, quantifying them, and tracking deadlines across thousands of entries. Your broker executes the filings: entries, post-summary corrections, and protests. Bring in trade counsel when culpability is in play: a prior disclosure, a penalty notice, a CBP investigation, or litigation. The strongest position is walking into any of those with the data already organized.