If Customs sent you a Notice to Addressee of Arrival of Mail Shipment (CBP Form 3509), your package is detained at a CBP International Mail Facility and cannot be delivered until a formal entry is filed for it — a Type 01 consumption entry, the same filing used for commercial cargo. Only the addressee or a licensed customs broker can file one. We file postal formal entries for individuals, one parcel at a time.
You have 30 days from the date printed on your notice. After that, CBP treats the shipment as refused and returns it to the sender. We ask for everything 10 days before your deadline, because the single most common way these go wrong is a missing document discovered on day 27.
A specimen, with the boxes that matter marked. Yours will look like this. Four fields decide everything that follows — and one of them is routinely misread.
Not the day it reached you, and not the day you opened it. Thirty days run from this date. It is the first thing to tell us.
CBP looks to whoever is printed here, and only that person can authorize us to file. Make entry and you become the importer of record, responsible for the duty and the records — you can also refuse the parcel and let it go back. If the name is misspelled or is a nickname, tell us: it is fixable, but not by ignoring it.
A control number in the form K26-0000. It identifies your parcel to CBP and belongs on every message about it, ours and yours.
Read the box actually ticked, and the remarks. In the specimen the tick says over $2,500 while the remarks say over $800 — and $800 is the figure that governs. The letter accompanying your notice recites generic requirements, often including agency clearances that have nothing to do with your parcel.
De minimis was suspended for all countries on that date, mail included. CBP then suspended the exemption in the regulations indefinitely, and the postal entry process that replaced the old paper mail entry took effect on 24 July 2026. Duty itself is nothing new — parcels above the threshold have always been dutiable — but the exemption that let almost everything through has gone, so packages that would once have been delivered without ceremony are now held for entry. Most people receiving a Form 3509 have never dealt with Customs before. If that is you, nothing has gone wrong and you are not in trouble: a procedural step simply has to be completed before the parcel moves.
You are the importer of record — the person CBP holds responsible for the entry, the duty and the records. The 5 steps marked You can only be done by you, and nothing moves until they are. Everything else is JFS CHB. Typical elapsed time is five to eight business days from the moment your documents and payment are complete — the clock is set by your notice date, not by when you contact us.
Email the Form 3509, the customs declaration attached to the parcel, and the invoice or order confirmation from the seller. A phone photo is fine.
We calculate the CBP deadline — 30 days from your notice date — and an internal cutoff 10 days before it. We confirm which facility is holding the parcel and read Box 11 to establish why. You get both dates in writing the same day.
This authorizes us to file with CBP on your behalf. It must be signed by the person named in Box 1 of the notice — not a relative, not the seller, not the dealer who sourced the item. If someone else is paying, that is fine and separate.
An individual signs a personal POA. A company form is not valid for a private person.
Complete the POAThis opens your file and creates your importer record with CBP. It asks who you are, what is in the parcel and where it came from. For a one-off personal parcel most sections are short.
Start the intake formA driver license or passport matching the name in Box 1, and the card or wire receipt showing what you actually paid the seller. Customs values the parcel on the price paid, so the receipt matters.
We take your SSN by telephone, never by email or text message. Call 855-888-0666 when you are ready to give it.
Sanctions and denied-party checks on you and the seller, and a check of whether the goods need clearance from another agency or are restricted. We do this before classification, so that if something blocks the entry you find out early rather than after paying.
We determine the tariff classification ourselves rather than trusting the code the foreign post wrote on the label, convert the currency at the rate required by regulation, and send you a written figure: entered value, duty by line, any additional tariffs, and the merchandise processing fee.
Our fee, the bond and the duty deposit, in cleared funds. We cannot file on funds that are merely sent — this is the point where files most often lose a day.
We establish your importer record, buy a single-transaction customs bond in your name, transmit the formal entry and pay the duty to CBP. You get the entry number, the filing date and the amount paid the same day.
On release the parcel re-enters the postal system and is delivered normally. We track it to your door and keep the complete file for the five years the regulations require.
You cannot collect the parcel from the mail facility, and delivery timing is the Postal Service's.
Illustrative round figures for a lot of collectible documents bought from a German dealer. The tariff rate on the goods themselves is zero — and there is still a bill.
| Entered valueConverted from the invoice currency, not from your card statement | $5,300 |
|---|---|
| Tariff duty on the goodsCollector’s pieces carry a free rate | $0 |
| Additional duty — Section 301 forced labor10%, reported under a Chapter 99 heading and in force since 24 July 2026. A separate trade action from the tariff schedule, so a free HTS rate does not exempt the goods from it. | $530 |
| Merchandise processing feeCharged on every formal entry | $18 |
| Payable to CBP | about $548 |
Our AI classifier reads a product image and returns a candidate HTS code with an estimated duty rate and landed cost. It takes about a minute and will tell you whether you are looking at a small bill or a large one.
Enter the value you actually paid, in the currency on the invoice converted to dollars, and the country the goods were made in — both are on your notice and the postal declaration.
A starting point, not a filing. A licensed broker confirms the classification before anything is transmitted to CBP, and the figure on your entry is the one that counts.
Every importer of record carries a statutory duty to retain entry records for five years from the date of entry under 19 CFR Part 163. That obligation is yours, not ours — but when we file as your broker we maintain the complete file on your behalf and can produce it if CBP asks. This is one of the practical reasons people use a broker for a one-off parcel: the filing takes days, the record has to survive five years.
An entry is not final when the parcel is delivered. CBP has a period in which it reviews and settles the entry — liquidation — and may raise questions well after the fact. If the classification or value needs correcting, that is done against the file. Without the records, a routine question becomes a problem.
You are entitled to a copy of everything we hold for you, at any time, on request.
Postal entries carry their own vocabulary, and most of it appears on your paperwork without explanation. Here is what each term means for your parcel.
Yes. An importer may file their own entry, and nothing requires you to use a broker. In practice it means obtaining a customs bond, classifying the goods under the tariff schedule, and transmitting a formal entry to CBP electronically — which requires filer access that individuals do not usually have.
CBP staff at the mail facility cannot file the entry for you, and are not permitted to recommend a broker.
An International Mail Facility (IMF) is a CBP-staffed facility where inbound international mail is presented to Customs before it enters the domestic postal stream. The major ones sit at airports — JFK in New York, LAX in Los Angeles, ORD in Chicago and DFW in Dallas–Fort Worth among them.
Which one holds your parcel is printed on your notice, along with the port code. It is not necessarily the facility nearest you: mail is presented where the flight arrived, so a parcel addressed to Alabama can sit at JFK. That is also why the entry is filed to the facility's port rather than your local port.
IMFs are not open to the public and do not release parcels over a counter.
CBP treats the shipment as refused and returns it to the sender. Whether you get your money back is between you and the seller.
An extension can sometimes be requested, but it must be asked for before the deadline passes and is granted case by case. An unanswered request is not an extension. If your deadline is close, say so when you first contact us.
CBP identifies every importer by a number. A business uses its EIN; a private individual who has never imported before uses their SSN. There is no way to file a formal entry without one.
We take it by telephone and never by email or text message. It is held in your importer record for the five years the recordkeeping rules require.
No. The power of attorney must be signed by the person named as addressee on the notice, because that person is the importer of record in the eyes of CBP.
Someone else may pay, and we are happy to correspond with them if you ask us to. Who pays and who is the importer are two separate questions, and we settle both in writing at the start.
It depends on what the item is, where it was made and what you paid. We give you a written figure before you commit, broken down line by line.
Two things surprise people. Duty is assessed on the price you paid, not on what you think the item is worth. And there is a minimum merchandise processing fee on every formal entry, which on a low-value parcel is often the largest single line on the bill.
For a rough figure straight away, our AI HTS classifier will take a photo of your item and return a candidate tariff code with an estimated duty rate. A licensed broker confirms it before anything is filed.
That advice is out of date, and it is the most common misunderstanding we correct. The exemption for informational materials was a limit on one specific tariff authority. That authority no longer operates — the reciprocal tariffs were invalidated in February 2026 and the surcharge that replaced them expired in July 2026.
What applies now is the Section 301 forced-labor action, which rests on a different statute and carries no equivalent carve-out for books, artworks or documents. It is reported under a Chapter 99 heading and sits alongside the ordinary tariff rate rather than replacing it — which is why a free rate in the tariff schedule does not make the parcel duty free. Relief, where it exists, has to be found in the product exclusion lists instead, and we check those for you.
Do not pay it twice. When duty is paid through a formal entry, it is settled with CBP before release, and a collection notice on delivery is an error.
Keep the notice, photograph it, and send it to us. We take it up with the mail facility citing your entry and control numbers.
No, and the notice says so in Box 14. International mail facilities are not open to the public and do not release parcels over a counter. Once CBP releases it, the parcel goes back into the postal stream and is delivered to the address on it. Delivery timing after that is the Postal Service's, not ours.
We handle parcels requiring a formal entry. Where the hold involves another agency — food, supplements, cosmetics, medical devices, alcohol, tobacco, plant or animal material — that filing is quoted separately before we do anything.
Seizures, and detentions over suspected counterfeits, are a different proceeding with different deadlines. Call us and we will tell you honestly whether you need a broker or a lawyer.
Same business day. Send us the notice and we will confirm your two dates and what we need before the day is out. The work itself takes five to eight business days once documents and payment are complete — the constraint is almost never us, it is how fast the paperwork comes back.
Email the Form 3509 to sales@jfschb.com or call 855-888-0666. Tell us the date printed on it — that is the only thing that sets your deadline.
Both are needed before we can file. Neither takes long for a one-off personal parcel.
Last reviewed 21 August 2026. Tariff programs affecting international mail changed twice in 2026 and this page is reviewed against current CBP guidance.
JFS CHB, Inc. — licensed U.S. customs broker, CBP filer code 82G. This page explains a customs procedure in general terms and is not legal advice. The notice shown is a specimen with placeholder details. Duty rates, tariff programs and exemptions change frequently; figures are confirmed in writing for your specific parcel before you commit.
