In late November 2018, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) voided several importer numbers that have not been used in over a year. Unfortunately, a number of importers were mistakenly impacted by the sweep, which can have a devastating impact on the importer's ability to make declarations to CBP.

If any of your importers are affected, reactivation instructions can be found here. In addition to a signed CBP Form 5106, U.S. Customs also requires documentation received from the U.S. Department of Treasury within the last 12 months that reflects the EIN and company name. Acceptable documents include the 147C, 1040, 2363, 941, SS-4, and 1065, among others.

You should also be aware that the reactivation process is fairly labor intensive. In a typical day, U.S. Customs handles about 20 of these requests, with most being processed within two business days. However, various administrative delays, such as the November 2018 episode, can slow this reactivation process to a crawl.


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