If your USPS tracking has stopped on “held by customs”, your parcel is sitting at a CBP International Mail Facility — and most of the time it will move on its own. What stops it is a Notice to Addressee of Arrival of Mail Shipment, CBP Form 3509. Once Customs posts you one, the parcel 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, and we file them for individuals, one parcel at a time.
You have up to 30 days from the date printed on your notice. That is a ceiling, not an allowance — 19 CFR 132.25 gives you a reasonable time not exceeding 30 days to tell CBP you intend to take delivery, and the port director can set a shorter one. After it runs out the shipment is treated as undeliverable and goes back 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.
USPS cannot release a parcel that Customs is holding. The parcel is at a CBP International Mail Facility, and that tracking line is a placeholder the Postal Service shows while Customs has it — USPS has no visibility into the decision and no authority over the parcel. Calling them will not move a customs hold, which is where most people spend their first week. They can still help with an ordinary postal problem, and if the parcel was never held at all that is the right call to make.
The harder problem is that one tracking status covers three different situations, and it looks identical in all of them:
Most international mail is entered and released without the addressee doing anything. Since de minimis ended that no longer means duty-free: low-value mail now goes through the postal entry process, with a qualified party filing it and paying the duty to CBP. Usually you are asked for nothing. Tracking sits still, then moves. (A voluntary alternative, entry type 13, opens on 22 October 2026.)
CBP wants a Type 01 entry and has posted you a Form 3509. Above $2,500 that is about value. It also happens at any value — an agency requirement, unmarked goods, quota or anti-dumping merchandise, alcohol and tobacco. Your clock started on the date printed on the notice.
A seizure notice or an intellectual-property detention. These have different deadlines, and a 3509 is not what arrives. Read what actually came in the post before assuming — the form tells you which of these you are in.
The tracking will not tell you which one you are in. That is the part that catches people. Tracking is not required to update: we have seen parcels sit on “held” for the full 30 days and then move straight to “returned to sender”, the status never once saying “detained”. What arrives by post is the reliable signal — and we only hear from the people whose notice turned up, so treat a silent letterbox as unknown rather than as good news.
So: check your mail, not your tracking. If a Form 3509 has arrived, the deadline is real and it started on the date printed on the notice, not the day tracking stopped and not the day you opened the envelope. What the notice asks for inside those 30 days is that you tell the port director you intend to take delivery — but the entry behind that takes time to prepare, so the date to work back from is the one on the paper. If no notice has come and the parcel has been static for more than about two weeks, that is worth a conversation — send us the tracking number and we will tell you what we think is happening, at no charge and with no obligation to file anything.
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. Up to thirty days run from this date — 19 CFR 132.25 says a reasonable time not exceeding 30 days, so treat it as a ceiling. 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 — they tell you which of four situations you are in, and they are not the same problem. Only the first tick is about value — formal entry above $2,500. Do not be put off by the word “commercial” on it: 19 CFR 145.12(a)(2)(i) applies to every mail importation over $2,500, and a personal purchase counts. The second applies regardless of value, and covers things like quota goods, anti-dumping merchandise, alcohol and tobacco, and Chapter 98 or 99 duties. The third and fourth are not about value either: an other-agency requirement, or goods not legally marked with a country of origin. An agency requirement means a formal entry as well, not instead. The letter accompanying your notice recites generic requirements, most of which will not apply to 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.
If Box 11 on your notice is ticked for an other government agency requirement, the parcel needs a formal entry and that agency's data filed with it. Not one or the other — both, on the same entry. This applies at any value: a $40 jar of face cream and a $40 bag of dried mushrooms are both caught, and neither is about the $2,500 line. We file the agency data ourselves rather than handing it back to you.
Food sent without prior notice does not get the 30 days. FDA prior notice for food arriving by international mail has to be submitted before the sender posts it, and the confirmation number has to appear on the customs declaration the sender fills in (21 CFR 1.279(c), (e)). A food parcel that arrives without one — or with one whose number is not on the declaration — is held for 72 hours for FDA, after which it can be returned to the sender or destroyed (21 CFR 1.283(e)). Because a notice travels by ordinary post, those 72 hours have usually run by the time anything reaches your letterbox. Call the same day it does.
Two things this does not cover. Food a person made at home and sent you as a personal gift needs no prior notice at all (21 CFR 1.277(b)(2)), and a food parcel that did have prior notice and is held on a Box 11 agency tick has the same 30 days as anything else. And if the parcel has not shipped yet, we can file the prior notice before it does — you will need to get the confirmation number to the sender for their declaration, which is the step nobody expects.
Where the requirement is met by data on the entry, JFS CHB transmits the partner government agency message set itself, alongside the customs data. That covers FDA, USDA, APHIS and Fish & Wildlife filings.
Permits, registrations and licences are separate requirements with their own timing. They are not entry data, and some cannot be obtained once the goods have arrived. FDA prior notice is separate in the same way — we do file it, but it has to happen before the parcel ships. We will tell you which of these apply before you engage us.
An entry presents your goods to the agency. It does not make an inadmissible product admissible. An unapproved device, a food from an unregistered facility, wildlife needing a permit nobody applied for — the filing does not change any of that.
Wildlife also has to clear at a port designated for it, which most mail facilities are not, so a wildlife parcel may have to move before it can be released.
Whether a particular product is lawful to sell once it is here is a question for the agency or for counsel, not for your customs broker. We file what the entry requires and we will say plainly when a question sits outside that.
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 fee0.3464% of the entered value would be $18.36 — but the fee has a floor, and on a parcel this size the floor is what you pay | $33.58 |
| Payable to CBP | about $564 |
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.
CBP publishes no target turnaround for ordinary mail, and most parcels move through an International Mail Facility in a few days. There is no clock you can hold CBP to while it is deciding.
What does have a firm deadline is your side of it. Under 19 CFR 132.25 you have a reasonable time, not exceeding 30 days from the notice, to tell the port director you intend to take delivery — otherwise the parcel is treated as undeliverable and goes back to the sender. Food sent without FDA prior notice is the exception and is much shorter — 72 hours rather than 30 days, explained under “Held for another agency” on this page.
Tracking will not tell you which situation you are in. A silent tracking line and an empty letterbox does not mean nothing is happening — notices go by ordinary post and do go astray. Send us the tracking number and we will tell you what we make of it.
Possibly, but tracking is a poor instrument for answering this. USPS shows a status while the parcel is at a CBP facility and is not told what happens there, so the line can sit unchanged whether Customs is processing the parcel routinely, has detained it, or has already released it back into the postal stream.
The reliable signal is paper. A detained parcel generates a Notice to Addressee of Arrival of Mail Shipment — CBP Form 3509 — sent by ordinary post to the addressee. If that has arrived, the parcel is detained and a clock is running. If it has not, and the parcel has been static for more than a couple of weeks, send us the tracking number and we will tell you what we make of it.
No, and this is worth being direct about because it is where most people lose their first week. The Postal Service is not holding the parcel and has no authority over it. Staff on the phone can see the same tracking line you can and cannot see CBP's system at all.
CBP staff at the mail facility cannot help either: they are not permitted to file an entry on your behalf and are not permitted to recommend a broker. The parcel moves when a formal entry is filed and any duty is paid, and only the addressee or a licensed customs broker acting for them can file it.
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.
Yes. Where the hold involves another agency — food, supplements, cosmetics, medical devices, plant or animal material — we file the agency data ourselves alongside the customs entry. It is quoted separately because it is separate work, but it is work we do rather than something we hand back to you.
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 29 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.
