FDA filing deadline in ACE set for June 15

Most imports that must be cleared by the Food and Drug Administration will have to be filed next month in the new Automated Commercial Environment.    Effective June 15, the U.S. Customs Automated Commercial Environment will become the mandatory system for filing electronic entries and entry summaries for merchandise subject to import requirements of the Food and Drug Administration, according to a Federal Register notice published Monday.
   After that date, Customs and Border Protection will no longer process forms filed through its legacy Automated Commercial System, which is being phased out. Importers and brokers can still file paper documents at the local Customs house, if they prefer, but will likely experience much slower response times and cargo delays if they do so.
   ACE is a massive IT deployment by CBP that the agency is using to track, control and process all international cargo shipments for admissibility, duties, fees, security and compliance with trade regulations. It also is the platform for the International Trade Data System (ITDS), which is designed as a single channel for disseminating electronic forms between traders and other agencies with hold and release authority, or statistical requirements, so that parties can transmit a standard date set to multiple sources, and any agency-specific documents in one transaction. Under an Obama administration executive order, all agencies are supposed to be working in ITDS by end of the year.
   CBP has required most types of entry summaries – used to declare the value, classification, rate of duty and other information — to be filed in ACE since the end of March. Shipments subject to review by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Animal Plant Health Inspection Service were also included in the March 31 deadline. CBP has said it will require most types of entries, used to determine whether merchandise can be released from CBP custody at the port of entry, to be filed in ACE by the end of May.