DELOVANJE SISTEMA ATA V ZDA – letalski prevoz

Please find hereafter the copy of a message from the US Council for International Business (USCIB) – the US national guaranteeing organization – explaining that, according to a recent memorandum sent by U.S. Customs Headquarters to all U.S. Customs ports in October 2011, domestic ports should validate Carnets even though holders will be changing flights at another port before leaving the U.S. if the goods are checked in with the airline and the holder would not have control over the Carnet goods.

This is a major improvement as the previous procedure provided that the last port of exit out of the U.S. should be the one to stamp the Carnet, preventing many Carnet holders from having their Carnets properly stamped by US Customs when exiting the US Customs territory, leading to the payment of regularizations fees.

In the past, we have received complaints from foreign Carnet holders who attempted to leave the U.S. from a port on a domestic flight, connecting at a larger port for an international flight, where the Customs official at the domestic port (e.g., Las Vegas, Knoxville, etc.) would refuse to validate the Carnet for re-exportation, stating that the last port of exit out of the U.S. should be the one to stamp the Carnet. The problem was that the holders would check their goods and luggage with the airline to the foreign destination and would not have access at the larger port. Obviously this made it impossible to have the Carnet stamped at the larger Customs port when the goods were not present or available for inspection. Whenever there was a claim based on these types of situations, there would be no proof of re-exportation and a regularization fee was always assessed.

We did voice this concern to U.S. Customs during past talks but ultimately nothing was done until we received a memorandum sent by U.S. Customs Headquarters to all U.S. Customs ports in October 2011, defining what the port of (re-)exportation  was in terms of Carnet traffic and that the domestic port should validate the Carnet even though the holder will be changing flights at another port before leaving the U.S. if the goods are checked in with the airline and the holder would not have control over the Carnet goods.

Please advise the national guaranteeing organizations that their Carnet holders may now have their Carnets validated at the initial port of exit when departing the U.S. and their goods are checked in. We do have a topic on our website at: http://www.uscib.org/index.asp?documentID=1675 (Question 25).