Truck & rail cross-border

A land border gives you no grace period. There is no discharge, no free time and no warehouse: a truck reaches the primary booth and either the entry is on file or the driver goes to secondary and the load stops. Ocean gives you days to fix a document problem. A land border gives you the length of the queue.

How a truck actually clears

The mechanism is a shared number. The carrier puts a barcoded label on the invoice packet, built from its own carrier code and a unique shipment number, transmits that number in the electronic manifest and gives it to us. We file the entry against the same number. At the booth the officer scans the barcode, the entry appears, and the truck is released or referred in seconds. That is the Pre-Arrival Processing System, and it works exactly as long as three parties use an identical string.

Timing is set by the manifest rule. A truck carrier transmits at least one hour before reaching the border, or thirty minutes if carrier and driver are FAST approved. We want documents well ahead of that, because an entry filed into the same hour the truck is transmitting leaves no room to fix a classification or place a bond. Southbound into Canada the equivalent review is filed by a CBSA-licensed broker, not by us, and on two-way lanes we coordinate with them so one invoice does not describe two shipments.

Rail

Rail is unforgiving in a different way: the train does not stop for your car. Carriers report cargo two hours before arrival at the port of entry, and a car that is not cleared keeps rolling into the yard, where it is switched and released on the railroad schedule rather than yours. Most inbound rail moves in-bond to an inland port and is entered there. We file at the destination port and track the in-bond so it is arrived and closed rather than left open against your bond. See in-bond and bonded warehouse.

USMCA: the certification is worth more than it used to be

There is no government form. A USMCA certification of origin is a set of required data elements that can sit on the commercial invoice or a separate sheet, made by the importer, the exporter or the producer, and it can be blanket for up to twelve months. If you did not claim it at entry you can still claim within one year of importation and have the duty refunded, which we do regularly for importers who inherited a file where nobody asked.

What the certification is not is proof. It states that the goods meet a rule of origin. The records behind it, the bill of material, the supplier declarations, the value content calculation, are what you produce when CBP asks. On automotive goods those rules are demanding: value content thresholds, a steel and aluminium purchase requirement, a labour value content test. USMCA also carries a scheduled joint review among the three governments, so the terms are under active discussion. We file against the rules in force on the date of entry.

A trade agreement removes the ordinary duty rate. It does not remove a trade-remedy tariff. Goods can qualify perfectly under USMCA and still owe Section 232 metal duty.

What the border costs in 2026

• Section 232 on metals. Steel and aluminium from Canada and Mexico carry metal-content duty like anything else, declared on melt and pour or smelt and cast country. Components fabricated in Mexico from steel melted elsewhere are the case that surprises people. Section 232 in practice.
• Vehicles and parts.The automotive action has been amended more than once, including how USMCA-qualifying content is treated. We read the current Federal Register notice, not last quarter’s spreadsheet.
• AD/CVD. Orders on pipe, fasteners, wire, cabinets and a long list of finished goods reach truck freight every day. Routing goods through a neighbouring country does not change their origin, and CBP treats an origin claim made to dodge an order as fraud rather than error. AD/CVD explained.

Where land border shipments go wrong

• The truck beat the paperwork. Documents arrive while the driver is already in the queue. The load waits, the carrier bills detention, the driver loses hours of service.
• The shipment number does not match. A dash, a leading zero or a re-used number, and the scan returns nothing. This is the commonest cause of a secondary referral.
• Manifest and invoice disagree. The carrier transmitted eighteen pallets, the invoice shows twenty. CBP sees the discrepancy, not the explanation.
• The wrong port. An entry filed to Laredo does not help a truck crossing at Pharr. Tell us the crossing, not only the destination.
• Perishables at a produce port. At Nogales, Pharr and Otay Mesa the APHIS inspection and the FDA Prior Notice, due two hours before arrival by road, decide whether a reefer moves that afternoon or sits overnight.

What we need from you

• Carrier code and shipment control number, the crossing, and the estimated arrival.
• Commercial invoice with unit price, quantity, currency, Incoterm and origin per line, plus a packing list whose piece count and weight match what the carrier transmitted.
• USMCA certification, or the origin data for us to assess whether you qualify.
• Mill certificates on steel or aluminium content, and a continuous bond sized for your annual duty, which at current rates is usually larger than importers expect. How to size one.