Address Changes on a Customs Bond

It is important to update the address on your Customs Bond when your business changes addresses.

In order to retain accurate information, Customs and Border Protection has created a variety of policies. One of their more costly policies is their bad address policy. This policy requires you to inform Customs if your company’s address has changed.

Customs uses your company’s address to contact you about entering goods, Customs forms, claims on your Customs Bond, etc. Therefore, they want to have an accurate address on file in order to maintain contact with your company.

What Happens if Your Address is Incorrect with Customs?

If your companies address changes and Customs sends out mail to an undeliverable address, they will immediately deem your company’s bond insufficient. When a bond is deemed insufficient, you will not be able to enter any goods into the United States until the issue is solved. This delay in your entry can result in a major delay in your supply chain and possibly incurring additional fees at the port.

Since Customs has determined that your address is undeliverable, they will make no additional efforts to notify the importer or the surety about the issue. Instead, their way of notifying the importer is the act of deeming the bond insufficient. And, as previously stated, Customs will keep your bond insufficient until they have processed Customs Form 5106.

How to Inform Customs About Address Changes

If your company’s address changes there is a way to easily notify Customs and Border Protection. This process begins with the submission of Customs Form 5106 and the appropriate bond rider to the Revenue Division Bond Team. Once Customs receives this information, your information will be updated in ACE. However, Customs can take up to 5 business days to make these changes in their system.

Here at TRG we understand how confusing even a process this simple can be when dealing with Customs. To make it simpler, we help importers through the whole process of changing the address on their bond for no additional cost.

All you have to do is contact the team in TRG’s Customer Loyalty Department and they will walk you through the process and get your information up-to-date.