CBP Issues Last-Minute Orders on Steel and Aluminum Derivatives
Importers and brokers must now act quickly to orders issued by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) last night, leaving less than three hours to comply. At 4:45 on March 11, 2025, the Secretary of Commerce posted the pre-publication Federal Register notice, certifying adequate systems are in place to “fully, efficiently, and expediently process and collect tariff revenue for covered articles for both steel and aluminum.” The notice is scheduled to be formally published on Friday, March 14, 2025.
What does this mean? We knew duty on steel and aluminum articles and derivatives in HTSUS Chapters 73 and 76 were effective today, but even as of CBP’s communications on Friday night, March 7th, the date was still TBD for derivatives outside Chapters 73 and 76. As of today, the duty is now due on those additional derivatives.
There are no guidelines for how importers should determine and certify metal content to reduce the amount of duty due. Until importers can make that determination, they must pay the additional duty on the entire value of the merchandise.
Links to CBP’s CSMS messages, which include attachments that provide HTS numbers.
Steel CSMS # 64384423 – List of HTSUS numbers is under the heading for HTSUS 9903.81.91.
Aluminum CSMS # 64384496 – List of HTSUS numbers is under the heading for HTSUS 9903.85.08.
Schenker will work you as we navigate together through these challenging times. Please reach out to your Schenker contact for questions.