A shipment held by CBP — what is happening, and the path from here
Reads the CBP notice for the hold type and the deadline, then shows the general path from there. Background, not legal or customs advice.
A held shipment usually means one of a few things:
- CBP is examining the goods
- a partner agency has flagged them
- a document or a value is in question
- the goods are detained over a specific concern, such as forced labor
Each has a different cause and a different way out. What follows sorts the hold by what the notice says, then explains that path.
This is background about the hold and the general path, not legal or customs advice, and it does not promise a shipment will be released. A licensed customs broker or a customs attorney handles the response.
Reference · What a CBP hold or detention means
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When U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) holds a shipment, the goods are not released until the reason for the hold is resolved. A hold is not a single thing — it comes in several kinds, and each has its own process, evidence, and deadline. Identifying which kind a notice describes is the first step, because the wrong response wastes a short clock.
The common kinds of hold
- Forced labor (UFLPA). CBP is holding the goods as presumptively made with forced labor, because they trace to China’s Xinjiang region or a company on the UFLPA Entity List. The burden is on the importer and the clock is short; a licensed customs attorney leads the response.
- Partner-agency (PGA) hold. Another federal agency riding along with CBP — FDA, CPSC, FCC, USDA, or EPA — wants its compliance documentation before the goods proceed.
- Value or classification. CBP is questioning the declared value or the HTS classification of the entry.
- Documentation request (CF-28 / CF-29). A Request for Information (CF-28) or Notice of Action (CF-29), usually with a response date.
- ISF, intellectual property, or an exam. A late or inaccurate Importer Security Filing, a trademark or counterfeit concern, or a routine examination.
The general path from a notice
Read the notice to identify the hold type and the deadline, gather the records that hold’s process calls for, and bring them to the right professional — a licensed customs attorney for a forced-labor detention, or a licensed customs broker working with the agency named on the notice. The free Detention Decoder above does the first step from the notice, and for a UFLPA hold it assembles a cited evidence checklist and a package to bring to a customs attorney.
Customs brokers and customs attorneys use it from the other side of the desk: when a client hands over a notice and a stack of documents, the tool reads the notice and organizes the cited evidence so the response starts from an assembled set rather than a pile. See what goes in a UFLPA detention response package.
Handling one of these for a client? How customs attorneys use this tool.