Product Compliance

On 2 September, US Customs proposed a 64-question rulemaking that would replace a decades-old product identifier and let CBP demand the export paperwork your own supplier files with its home customs authority

On 2 September 2026, US Customs and Border Protection published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking asking 64 questions about requiring importers to identify every party in a supply chain, retain the export documents their foreign suppliers file with their own customs authorities, and replace the decades-old Manufacturer or Shipper Identification Code with a more detailed global business identifier. Comments close 1 December 2026. It carries no legal force yet, but it reads like a blueprint for the product and party data every importer will eventually need to produce.

Naomie HaliouaCDO and co-founder 7 September 2026 · 6 min read

What actually happened on 2 September

CBP's ANPRM implements Executive Order 14411, which President Trump signed on 3 June 2026 to direct federal agencies to tighten customs enforcement against illicit trade and transshipment used to evade US duties. The notice does not propose finished rule text. Instead it asks 64 questions, organised around four themes: which parties in a supply chain an importer should have to identify beyond today's importer of record (manufacturers or producers, shippers, exporters, sellers, distributors and packagers are all named as candidates); whether importers should be required to obtain or retain the foreign export documentation their suppliers already generate, export declarations, commercial invoices, packing lists, certificates of origin, export licenses or permits, and transport documents, before goods leave the country of export; whether the existing Manufacturer or Shipper Identification Code (MID), an abbreviated code built into every entry, should be replaced or supplemented with a more detailed global business identifier; and what supply-chain tracing technology, including AI-driven tools, could verify all of it and help CBP detect illegal transshipment. CBP is also asking whether any of this should change CTPAT program requirements for its own trusted-trader participants. The agency has stated the goal is to more effectively detect and interdict illicit importations, particularly goods illegally transshipped to evade US customs and trade law. Comments can be filed through the Federal eRulemaking Portal at regulations.gov under docket USCBP-2026-1058, and are due by 1 December 2026.

Three nuances that separate signal from noise

An ANPRM asks questions, it does not yet require anything

CBP has not proposed binding rule text. It is asking 64 questions about costs, technology and definitions before drafting an actual regulation. No importer has a new legal obligation because of this notice alone; a formal proposed rule, and a further comment period, would still have to follow.

It reaches past the importer, to the paperwork exporters file back home

Among the documents CBP is asking about are export declarations, licenses and certificates of origin that a foreign exporter already files with its own country's customs authority, records most US importers never see today.

It questions the identifier every import already carries

CBP is asking whether the Manufacturer or Shipper Identification Code (MID), built into every US customs entry for decades, should be replaced or supplemented with a more detailed global business identifier tied to the actual manufacturer, packager or distributor.

3 Jun 2026

President Trump signs Executive Order 14411, "Strengthening Customs Enforcement."

2 Sep 2026

CBP publishes the ANPRM "Heightened Import Disclosures for Supply Chain Visibility" in the Federal Register, docket USCBP-2026-1058.

1 Dec 2026

Deadline for public comments on the ANPRM via the Federal eRulemaking Portal.

The numbers behind the ANPRM

One number shows how granular CBP is willing to get before writing a single line of binding text. One is how long the trade community has to respond. The third is how far past the importer of record the agency is already looking.

questions CBP poses in the ANPRM, covering compliance costs, available technology, supplier lead times and implementation timelines

90 days

the public comment window, from the 2 September 2026 publication to the 1 December 2026 deadline

categories of supply-chain parties, manufacturer or producer, shipper, exporter, seller, distributor and packager, CBP is weighing whether to require every importer to identify, beyond today's importer of record

The real subject: whether product data, not just customs data, should travel with every shipment

A standard US customs entry today rests on two things: a tariff classification for the goods and an importer of record, an abbreviated MID code, accountable at the border. Neither one says, in a verifiable way, which factory actually made a specific shipment, what documentation that factory's own government required before it could leave the country, or whether the party named as manufacturer on the entry is the same party a foreign customs authority recognises as the exporter. That gap is exactly where transshipment fraud lives: a shipment can be relabelled, re-routed through an intermediate country, or attributed to a different named party, and an aggregate product-category code plus a compact identifier code will not catch it on its own. CBP's 64 questions read like an attempt to close that gap from the product-data side rather than the tariff-schedule side: replace or supplement the MID with a global business identifier precise enough to name the actual manufacturer or packager; require the export-side paperwork that already exists in the exporting country, so a US entry can be checked against a document a foreign customs authority already validated; and bring in tracing technology to verify the link between the two automatically, at scale, across millions of entries a year. None of this is written into binding text yet. But it treats the underlying vulnerability as a data-quality problem, not a rate-schedule problem, which is a different kind of fix than most customs enforcement stories describe.

Why it matters for brands

No brand has a new legal duty today because of this ANPRM. But 64 detailed questions, covering exactly which documents, which parties and which identifiers a future rule might require, function as a fairly precise blueprint of where a binding regulation would land, and the comment window closes on 1 December 2026. Retail, consumer-goods and luxury brands importing into the US, directly or through a customs broker, should treat the next three months as a diagnostic window rather than a wait-and-see one. The concrete test is whether a compliance team can already produce, at the SKU level and not just as a company-wide assurance, the verified identity of the manufacturer or packager behind a given shipment, the export-side documentation that manufacturer filed with its own country's customs authority, and a mapping from that identity to the MID or business identifier already on file with CBP. A brand that can answer that today is positioned to comment from operational fact rather than generalised objection, which is what the ANPRM itself asks commenters to provide, and to adapt smoothly if the eventual rule adopts anything close to what it is asking about. A brand that cannot is the one for whom a future finalized rule turns into an expensive scramble to retrofit SKU-level traceability across a live supply chain, rather than a comment filed calmly before the requirement is locked in.

Two ways to read 2 September

The narrow read

US Customs wants more paperwork from importers: expect higher compliance costs and another CTPAT review cycle somewhere down the road.

The structural read

CBP is questioning whether a decades-old product identifier and an importer-only accountability model can still catch modern transshipment fraud, and is using 64 detailed questions to sketch a future requirement: verified manufacturer identity, retained foreign export paperwork, and machine-checkable tracing data, tied to the SKU, not just the shipment.

Frequently asked questions

What did US Customs and Border Protection propose on 2 September 2026?

CBP published an Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, 'Heightened Import Disclosures for Supply Chain Visibility,' in the Federal Register under docket USCBP-2026-1058, implementing Executive Order 14411 of 3 June 2026. The notice asks 64 questions about requiring importers to identify additional supply-chain parties, obtain or retain foreign export documentation their suppliers already file abroad, replace or supplement the current Manufacturer or Shipper Identification Code with a more detailed global business identifier, and use supply-chain tracing technology. Public comments are due by 1 December 2026.

Does this create a new legal requirement for importers right now?

No. An Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking is a request for information and comment, not a binding rule. CBP has not proposed rule text; it is asking the trade community 64 questions about costs, technology, definitions and timelines to inform a future proposed rule, which would itself go through its own comment period before becoming final. The only current deadline is the 1 December 2026 date for submitting comments on this notice.

Why should a brand that already complies with existing CBP importer-of-record rules pay attention to this?

Because the ANPRM's 64 questions point toward a data model built around the specific product and the verified party behind it, manufacturer, packager, distributor, rather than only the importer of record. A brand whose compliance data stops at an aggregate MID code and a company-level assurance, without a verifiable link from a given SKU to the specific manufacturer that made it and the export documentation that manufacturer filed abroad, would face a harder retrofit if a future rule adopts anything close to what CBP is asking about. The open comment period, through 1 December 2026, is the moment to flag real operational costs and timelines before any such requirement is finalized.

Sources

Note on verification: this session's network access allows search but blocks direct page retrieval, including from federalregister.gov and cbp.gov. The docket number, publication and comment-deadline dates, the Executive Order number and signing date, and the substance of the 64 questions were confirmed through search-indexed excerpts of the Federal Register notice, the CBP and White House releases, and cross-checked against three independent legal and trade-compliance trackers (National Law Review, Morgan Lewis, GHY International) that each separately reported the same 64-question count, docket number and 1 December 2026 deadline.