Import Compliance Checklist: the Six US Programs That Change Your Duty

Last updated October 29, 2026·Data as-of: HTS 2026-10-19 / Section 301 2026-10-16 / AD-CVD 2026-10-16

Import compliance definition: the part of trade law that moves money

Import compliance is the discipline of declaring goods so that every claim you make — classification, value, origin, party identity — survives an audit. It is often explained as paperwork; in practice it is a pricing problem, because each program below adds duty or removes a preference, and each one is decided by fields you control at the moment of declaration.

The reason a single checklist is worth building is arithmetic: 91.5% of the eight-digit lines in the US schedule sit under a Section 301 heading, so “is my product 301-hit” is very often yes, and the question becomes which heading and at what rate. Getting that one step right changes landed cost more than any broker negotiation.^*

The six programs, by the numbers

Each row below is counted from a dataset we publish, and each dataset records its own upstream URL and fetch timestamp. That is the minimal standard we will accept for a compliance claim: if a number cannot be traced to a file and a field, it does not go on a page.

Underlying files, one per row: section301_origin.json, adcvd-orders.json, uflpa_entities.json, de-minimis-thresholds.json, fta-agreements.json, cbam_defaults.json.

Source: Program census recomputed from the six named datasets in projects/web-biz/data/ — https://hts.usitc.gov/reststop/file?release=currentRelease&filename=Chapter%2099 (fetched 2026-10-16).

Three relationships are worth stating plainly. Section 301 and AD/CVD are independent: a code can carry both, and the final duty is the sum, not the larger of the two. UFLPA is not a duty at all — it is an admissibility rule, so its cost shows up as a held shipment rather than an invoice line. And FTAs and de minimis are the only two items on the list that can reduce what you owe, which is why they deserve the same documentation discipline as the programs that add.

Where the Section 301 stack actually lands

A program census is easy to say and hard to act on. The actionable version is chapter-level: some HTS chapters are almost entirely covered by China 301 headings, others are almost untouched. The table counts distinct eight-digit lines under a Section 301 action heading per chapter.

Source: Recomputed from data/section301_origin.json (per-heading enumeration) joined to data/hts.json — https://hts.usitc.gov/reststop/file?release=currentRelease&filename=Chapter%2099 (fetched 2026-10-16).

Machinery and electrical machinery lead the list by line count because those chapters are enormous; measured as a share of the chapter's own lines the ordering changes, and that share is the number that predicts whether a sourcing switch will actually save duty.

Import compliance checklist: seven checks before you book freight

1. Line. Confirm the ten-digit HTS line and its general rate in the schedule snapshot.
2. 301 heading. Check whether that eight-digit code appears under an additional-duty heading, and at what rate.
3. AD/CVD. Check the six-digit code and country pair against the case table; both programs can apply to one code.
4. Party screen. Confirm no party is on a restricted list, and record the screening date.
5. Origin claim. If you claim a preference, hold the documentation the agreement requires before the entry, not after.
6. Value basis. Reconcile what the fee stack and duty will both multiply.
7. Retention. Keep the rationale for each claim; it is the only thing that survives an audit.

Every one of those checks maps to a published file: the schedule itself in the HTS browser, the case list in the AD/CVD table, and the raw files behind both under datasets. The first two checks are answerable in a single duty calculation, which is the only step most importers actually automate.

One warning about the order of those checks. Teams routinely start with the party screen because a hit feels urgent, and end with classification because it feels like paperwork. The data says the opposite: classification drives both the general rate and the additional-duty heading, so a line chosen late can change the answer to every other check on the list — including which agreement a preference claim belongs to.

Import compliance risk assessment: scoring a line without spreadsheet theatre

A defensible score needs three inputs, all of which our datasets carry: program coverage of the code, the number of distinct restricted-party names that could match the product family, and the volatility of the classification itself. Classification volatility is measurable — 2,350 CBP rulings in our sample turn on classification, and 35 of them (1.49%) are flagged revoked, which is a direct measure of how often the government changes its own answer.

Multiply that volatility by the duty delta between the competing lines and you have a risk number in dollars rather than in red/amber/green colours.^*

Import compliance manual template: six fields per SKU

The smallest manual that survives an audit has one row per SKU with six fields: ten-digit line, alternative lines considered, effective date of the ruling or schedule line relied on, the 301/AD-CVD status at declaration, the origin claim with its supporting document, and the screening record with a date. Anything beyond those six is commentary; anything fewer will fail at the first question.

Import compliance program, process and training: who owns what

The roles map to the checklist, not to a headcount. Whoever owns classification owns items 1 and 2; whoever owns purchasing owns the origin claim; whoever owns legal owns the screening record; and the process owner is whoever signs the entry summary. A specialist or officer exists to keep the six-field row current — the moment it stops being updated, the manual describes a company that no longer exists.

The program also needs a review cadence tied to publication rather than to the calendar: additional-duty headings change when the schedule changes, and case margins change when a review publishes. A quarterly re-run of the seven checks against the current datasets is cheaper than discovering the drift at the port.

Training is worth exactly what it changes: the ability to read a rate line and notice that a 25% additional-duty heading applies to a product the schedule lists at a low general rate. That single skill catches more money than any general seminar.^*

What this checklist deliberately excludes

Queries about import compliance in other jurisdictions (India, the UK, the EU) are a data gap for us, not a page gap: our datasets are US-source, so a page answering them would be improvisation. Employment queries (“import compliance jobs”, “officer”, “manager”) are not informational needs at all. Both are excluded on purpose rather than padded into a generic article.