Is Tariff Code Becoming Mandatory on USA/International Shipments?
Summary: teenytrinkets raises a concern about a recent change in shipping label formats on an app, where the tariff code field has become mandatory, unlike on the website. This leads to some troubleshooting and server errors. flipistics mentions that they routinely fill in the tariff code along with the country of origin, but notes that eBay sometimes overwrites these fields. femmefan1946 provides a link to Canada's HS system for easier code lookup, which flipistics and lotzofuniquegoodies find more effective than eBay's tools. brettjet38 confirms that tariff codes are becoming mandatory, along with buyer and seller phone numbers, and tracking for all shipments by 2025. intimewithmusic shares insights on international customs practices and emphasizes the importance of providing detailed export information to avoid delays in shipments.
Anyway, this wasn't the case for the website, but customer support staff say this is going to be mandatory going forward for all international shipments.
Has anyone else been entering a code in this field?
intimewithmusic
·2 years agoHi. Great question!
What's mandatory is that your package gets to your customer in good condition and preferably unopened.
International Customs, like eBay is another constantly changing service. US customs has ALWAYS required tariff codes also known as "Harmonized Standards".
In past decades they were pretty relaxed when it came to lettermail and smaller packages under duty thresholds. Technology has helped them speed things up. Codes aren't cumbersome any more.
Your tarriff code, country of origin and point of origin are your 3 friends. They detail the contents, the maker's home country and the shipping origin of your export. Without them your export is somewhat anonymous. The more detail they have the less likely they are to with hold your export. Once with held you are dealing with humans.
If they have external package info they can poass it through a scanner and see if things check out. If they don't they move it to where it is examined.
Believe it or not, as an exporter, customs may phone or email you. Nothing new there. In 1983 US customs phoned me. I'd rented an instrument to a band playing a major concert in Seatle. The band's trucks were examined at the border. My phone number was on the export doc. For whatever reason the band couldn't cross into the US until the Country Of Origin (COO) of the blanket in the bass drum was determined.
Of course this is ridiculous however something else was at play with the band. The border needed a reason to hold them and they phoned me to kill time.
Recently as of November USPS requires all exports to include email addresses of the recipients. they may have a grace period I don't know.
I do recommend if you want to "PUSH" your shipments cross border If we're talking about USPS (last mile) and USA Customs you need these.
Or you can trust your eBaydot ca label....
I've been following this since the "band blanket incident". It's not a probelm.
Canada Post is OK but UPS has better export guidance I think. Once you get the hang of it it's a heck of a lot easier than getting a ne TV remote to work!
It's worth it to keep your packages in the front of the line.
brettjet38
·2 years agoIs Tariff Code Becoming Mandatory?
Simple answer is YES
As is The Buyers Phone Number (and Sellers also) by the end of 2024
And Tracking (by 2025) for all items sent by any mail service, even the stamps for Letterpost will have bar codes pirnted on them for scanning in the system.
And evntually Citizen IDs for using the Internet, already in the works Quebec’s effort is scheduled to launch in 2025.
https://www.itworldcanada.com/article/canada-is-moving-faster-on-digital-id-than-most-think-says-atb-ventures/532961#:~:text=Digital%20IDs%20are%20ways%20governments,of%20provincial%20and%20federal%20services.
femmefan1946
·2 years agoFor those who are unaware of the newish HS system - it is international and this is the easiest one to use that I have found.
https://www.canadapost-postescanada.ca/information/app/wtz/business/findHsCode?execution=e1s1
flipistics
·2 years agoI've also found the Canada Post one to be significantly better than the one eBay links to.
lotzofuniquegoodies
·2 years ago@flipistics
When CP's tool gives me grief I default to either of the following. They work like a charm and not as fussy pinning an HS Code down. It can, in some cases, best to choose more generic vs specific words to get an accurate code (appropriate match). Personally, I am accustomed to the 10 digit codes due to work requirements. I'm afraid to imagine how many times the bots get it wrong based on the listing details. Bots(eIS) and Joe/Judy sellers' "close enough" are very likely 2 different concepts.
https://www.tariffinder.ca/en/getStarted
https://www.goglobalpost.com/hs-code-lookup-tool/
flipistics
·2 years agoI always enter it. I fill out the country of origin too, for all the good it does when eBay arbitrarily overwrites it.
teenytrinkets
OP2 years agoI'm thinking that's what the label issue was today. They rolled out a change to make that field mandatory for CP / USPS and broke labels! 🙄
lotzofuniquegoodies
·2 years ago@teenytrinkets
@flipistics
The same announcement about labels being broken was posted on com. There is also a number of reports of sellers having issues trying to combine orders. Very likely directed related to each other.
-Lotz