New ISF Regulations Move Forward: A Historical Update

Editor’s note: This article was first published in 2015 and describes an earlier stage of US Importer Security Filing (ISF) implementation. It should not be used as a current filing checklist.

ISF is an advance security filing for qualifying cargo arriving in the United States by ocean vessel. For a typical containerized ISF-10 shipment, most importer-provided information must be submitted at least 24 hours before the cargo is loaded aboard the US-bound vessel at the foreign port. Certain remaining information has a later deadline. A filing target expressed simply as “five days before arrival” does not describe the principal pre-loading deadline.

The importer should identify the responsible filing party and appointed agent early, collect the required supplier, buyer, manufacturer, origin and shipment information, and meet the agent’s document cutoff. An agent’s operational cutoff may be earlier than the regulatory deadline.

For the current data elements, deadlines, ISF-5 distinctions, bond considerations and correction process, use our ISF filing guide. For the relationship between ISF, the customs bond and the later entry, see ISF, customs bonds and clearance: Who does what?.

A customs bond will be required to secure the ISF filing and the 5 most common bonds have been amended to incorporate the ISF requirement. However, there are some exceptions . Bond requirements have been waived from the following ISF coded transactions:

• Type 3 “Household Goods/Personal Effects”




• Type 4 “Government and Military”




• Type 5 “Diplomatic”




• Type 6 “Carnets”




• Type 9 “International Mail”




• Type 11 “Informal Shipments”

ISF regulations started in January 2010 and this new step will improve the CBP’s ability to recognize potentially hazardous cargo in advance, improving its ability to identify containers that may pose a risk for terrorism.