US Customs and Border Protection has issued an interim rule that takes effect in early January. The change is narrow: licensed customs brokers must verify that an overseas client qualifies as a US importer of record before filing an entry on their behalf.
In practice, that step has often been a formality. Brokers filed on the strength of documents and the client's own assurance. The new rule shifts the verification burden onto the broker — a bad entry now carries consequences for the filer as well.
For Chinese sellers shipping to the US, the impact lands on two common setups: using a US entity or affiliate as importer of record while the operating business sits in China, and borrowing a third-party importer number to clear goods. Once the rule is live, brokers are obligated to press for the real identity and qualification documents behind those entities. Entries with incomplete paperwork can stall at filing.
Timing matters. A January start lands just after the pre-Chinese New Year shipping peak. For ocean-parcel and ocean-truck moves into the US West Coast, shippers whose importer information is not yet in order should reconcile the importer of record and supporting documents with their broker before mid-December, rather than discovering a rejected entry in the first week of January.
Two other data points came in the same batch. The National Retail Federation said US ports handled 2.37 million TEUs in September, the busiest month of 2026 and the third-busiest in the history of its Global Port Tracker. Separately, the US Trade Representative's office said Friday it would postpone port fees on China-built or China-controlled ships calling at US ports for two months, starting Monday.