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On June 8, 2017, CBP issued CSMS# 17-000334 – ACE Post Release Deployment, and published a Federal Register notice announcing the implementation of a series of new Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) capabilities effective July 8, 2017.  These capabilities include Collections and Statements, Reconciliation, Drawback*, Duty Deferral and Liquidation.

A little history…  On December 12, 2016, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) published notices announcing that this functionality would be deployed in ACE on January 14, 2017. The Trade expressed concern that this did not allow enough time for coding and testing.  On January 17, 2017, CBP published a notice in the Federal Register announcing that the effective date for the test modifications would be “delayed indefinitely”, with rumors of late 2017.

However, in TODAY’s Federal Register notice, CBP states that they have “assessed stakeholder readiness for the mandatory transition of post-release capabilities in ACE” and that they, and the Trade, are comfortable with moving forward on July 8th, 2017.

Ready or not, here it comes!  The most critical aspect of this deployment is that blanket flagging for reconciliation will no longer be in effect starting July 8, 2017.  More to follow from CNI on this topic.

Questions related to the Federal Register notice may be emailed to CBP at ASKACE@cbp.dhs.gov.

*Drawback capabilities – Please note that the drawback capabilities being deployed on July 8, 2017 are part of the ACE core trade processing capabilities, and include the following: 

• Consolidation to single entry type 47
• For electronic claims, submission of entire drawback package electronically
• System validations
• Integration with post release processes
• Improved system controls