This time of year can cause some confusion when filing a shipment as new HTS numbers will be going into effect on July 1, 2010. Revisions to the HTS numbers (import commodity codes) are generally made twice annually, in January and July and once a year in January for the Schedule B numbers (export commodity codes). For some freight forwarders and Customs brokers this may require updates to be made to their current commodity number classification as an obsolete code may cause unneeded Census errors.

These revisions are usually made because members in the trade community are looking for greater detail in the statistical data. Recommendations for revisions to existing classifications or for the establishment of new classifications are submitted to the Chairman of the Committee for Statistical Annotation of Tariff Schedules.

Requests can be sent via mail:

The Chairman

Committee for Statistical Annotation of Tariff Schedules

United States International Trade Commission

Washington, D.C. 20436

Requests can also be sent via email.

Once submitted, an interagency committee known as the 484(f) committee evaluates each request based on the analyses received from each member agency. The committee is comprised of representatives from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (USCBP), the U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC), and U.S. Department of Commerce, Foreign Trade Division (FTD). FTD focuses on determining sufficient trade and possible disclosure issues involved in a Schedule B or HTS number revision.

You can find the Schedule B updates in the Obsolete to New section on the Foreign Trade website:

//www.census.gov/foreign-trade/schedules/b/#obsolete

HTS numbers are archived from previous years on the U.S. International Trade Commission’s website:

//www.usitc.gov/tata/hts/archive/index.htm