What documents does my customs broker need?

Three documents sit at the center of almost every import entry: a commercial invoice, a packing list, and a transport document — a bill of lading for ocean freight, or an air waybill for air. CBP's entry rules name the commercial invoice and the packing list among the documents required to make entry, and a broker builds the entry from them.

A gap in this core set is the most common reason paperwork bounces back before an entry is even filed. If one of the three is missing, the broker cannot proceed — so having all of them in hand before the handoff is what keeps the shipment moving.

If the goods claim preferential duty treatment under a trade agreement — USMCA is the common one, and there are others — a certification of origin has to be in the importer's possession when the claim is made, and produced if CBP asks for it. Which program applies, and whether the goods actually qualify, is the broker's determination, not something a document check settles.

If no preferential claim is being made, this document does not apply. When it is, the certification travels to the broker with the rest of the set.

A consumer product that the CPSC regulates needs a certificate of compliance: a Children's Product Certificate for a children's product, or a General Certificate of Conformity for other regulated goods. A device the FCC regulates needs its own authorization instead. Whether a specific product needs one — and which kind — is a product-level question, answered from the product's attributes by the free Certificate Requirement Check.

Where a certificate is required, a broker will expect it — a CPC, a GCC, a Supplier's Declaration of Conformity, or the test report behind it — as part of the set handed over.

Some goods answer to a second federal agency at entry — the FDA for food, drugs, and cosmetics; the USDA for certain agricultural products; the EPA for others. That agency, not CBP, decides what it requires — a prior notice, a permit, a registration — and names it. A broker who works with the agency will expect that document alongside the entry.

An invoice and its attachments have to be in English, or carry an accurate English translation with enough detail to examine the goods and work out the duties. A foreign-language document without a translation is easy to overlook and a routine reason a set comes back — so lining up a translation for each one belongs before the handoff, not after.

The division is simple. The broker files the entry and makes the customs determinations — the classification, the declared value, the origin call. The documents that entry rests on originate with you and your supplier. A broker cannot invent a missing invoice or a certificate that was never obtained, so the fastest entries are the ones where the set arrives complete and internally consistent.

That is the reason to check the set before it goes over. A quantity that does not tie out across the invoice and the packing list, or a certificate that simply is not there, is far cheaper to catch on your own desk than after the broker sends the paperwork back.