Yes. As part of the Economic Census, the CFS information collection is required by law under Title 13 (Sections 224 and 225), United States Code (13 U.S.C. Sections 131 and 193). Title 13 (Section 224) and the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 (18, U.S.C. 3559 and 3571) allow for possible prosecution of responsible officials and penalties up to $5,000 (and a response is still required).

Yes. The Census Bureau is bound by Title 13 of the U.S. Code to protect your information—every answer, to every question—and keep it strictly confidential. Your answers can only be used to create statistics about our country. The law prevents the Census Bureau from sharing information that could identify your business or customers with any local, state, or federal officials.

The Commodity Flow Survey (CFS), a component of the Economic Census, is the only comprehensive source of multi-modal, system-wide data on the volume and pattern of goods movement in the United States. The CFS is conducted through a partnership between the U.S. Census Bureau, Department of Commerce (DOC), and the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), Department of Transportation (DOT). The survey provides a crucial set of statistics on the value, weight, mode, and distance of commodities shipped by mining, manufacturing, wholesale, and selected retail and services establishments, as well as auxiliary establishments that support these industries. The U.S. Census Bureau will publish these shipment characteristics for the nation, census regions and divisions, states, and CFS defined geographic areas. This survey also identifies export and hazardous material shipments since the 2007 survey cycle, and temperature-controlled shipments since the 2012 survey cycle.

Federal, state, and local government agencies spend over $100 billion annually on transportation programs. The CFS provides data that are critical to these agencies in making a wide range of transportation investment decisions for developing and maintaining an efficient transportation infrastructure that supports economic growth and competitiveness.

Transportation planners require the periodic benchmarks provided by a continuing CFS to evaluate and respond to ongoing geographic shifts in production and distribution.

The Commodity Flow Survey data are used by policy makers and transportation planners in various federal, state, and local agencies for assessing the demand for transportation facilities and services, energy use, and safety risk and environmental concerns. 

Additionally, CFS data are frequently used in academia for modeling and research. CFS data consumers also include economists and many others in private industry who have a stake in transportation and logistics.

The survey is conducted every five years, in years ending in "2" and "7". During the survey year, collection of the data is quarterly. The survey is a component of the Economic Census.

No. The law authorizing this report (Title 13, U.S. Code) does not authorize funds for payment.

Public reporting burden for this collection of information is estimated to average 1.5 to 2.5 hours per response, including the time for reviewing instructions, searching existing data sources, gathering and maintaining the data needed, and completing and reviewing the collection of information.

For security reasons, sessions will timeout after 15 minutes of inactivity. Upon session expiration, users will then be required to log back in. No saved data will be lost. 

Yes. The Commodity Flow Survey covers all types of shipments, including local, interstate, long distance, and export.

Yes. The Commodity Flow Survey covers all types of shipments, including local, interstate, long distance, and export. 

Yes. The 2022 CFS is interested in all types of shipments, whether they include hazardous material or not.

Yes. Firms of all sizes are represented to provide a complete measure of shipping activity. 

If your establishment location is no longer in business, please log in to the online survey and respond to “Item C - Operating Status.” Select the option “Ceased operation” and enter the date the location ceased operation in the field provided. Please also leave additional information regarding the location’s operating status in “Item J - Remarks” section at the end of the survey.

YOUR RESPONSE IS REQUIRED BY LAW. Title 13, United States code, requires businesses and other organizations to complete the survey. Title 13 prohibits your removal from the survey. By the same law, YOUR REPORT IS CONFIDENTIAL. It may be seen only by persons sworn to uphold the confidentiality of U.S. Census Bureau information and may be used only for statistical purposes.

The CFS is an online survey. Reporting online is the preferred means to provide data for this survey. If you are unable to complete your survey via the Internet, please contact us on 888-817-2154 to discuss alternate reporting options.

You are required to report shipments during a specified one-week period in each quarter of the 2022 calendar year.

For companies reporting for single locations, the reporting period will be on the dashboard on the Main Menu in the survey. 

For companies reporting for multiple locations at the same time, the reporting period for each location will be listed in the Locations Spreadsheet download available on the Upload Your Shipping Locations screen.

"Commodity" refers to an item that your company produces, sells, or distributes.  Waste-products (without value) of your location’s operation are not considered commodities and should not be reported.

An outbound shipment is a movement of commodities from your establishment to another single location, in one trip. Single shipments may have multiple vehicles, such as unit trains or truck convoys, but only one destination.

Commodities sent from your location to multiple destinations constitute multiple shipments. Each location on the route to which your commodities are delivered is considered one shipment.

Shipments to Include:

• Any materials picked up by the customer (“customer pick-up”)
• Only those shipments that were sent from the address listed in Item A in the online survey. 
• Shipments made from the specified shipping address on behalf of another establishment
• Shipments of commodities of all sizes, by any mode of transportation (e.g., parcels, truck, railroad)
• Any shipment of products from this location to another location of the company that are intended for sale (e.g., products moved from this location to a company warehouse)

Shipments to Exclude:

• Shipments made from another location other than the shipping address
• Internal administrative items such as inter-office memos, payroll checks,
• Business correspondence
• Promotional items sent to potential customers free of charge
• Refuse and waste items such as scrap paper, waste, and recyclable materials unless this location is in the business of selling these materials
• Items moved from this location to another location of the company if not intended for commercial activity (e.g., the transfer of office furniture to be used at anotherlocation of this company)

You will be provided with specific instructions to report shipments on Item F1 Shipment Reporting Options. On this screen you will have the option to upload all of your shipments via spreadsheet, upload a sample of your shipments via spreadsheet if you have over 40 shipments that week, or enter each shipment in individually (which is not recommended if you have a large number of shipments). 

The formula for number of shipments to report per week has changed from the 2017 Commodity Flow Survey (CFS) and it is more complex with more variations in 2022.  Therefore, we do not provide a chart for how many shipments to provide in the online survey instructions or online survey sample questionnaire. 

The requested number of shipments will display when you access the online survey and respond to the first few initial questions, including Item D, the total number of outbound shipments for your reporting week.  You will be provided with specific instructions on how to report shipments on Item F1 Shipment Reporting Options. On this screen you will have the option to upload all your shipments via spreadsheet, upload a sample of your shipments via spreadsheet if you have over 40 shipments during your reporting week, or enter each shipment in individually (which is not recommended if you have a large number of shipments). Note: Shipment sampling does not apply to companies reporting consolidated.

If you are receiving an error message when you are trying to upload a spreadsheet in the survey, please review the first row of that spreadsheet to make sure that all headers are identical to the headers in Row 1 of the spreadsheet template provided in the survey. Make sure that the Location_ID column is fully populated. 

If you reported for multiple locations at one time, you can download a confirmation receipt on the Submission Confirmation screen. Keep the spreadsheets you uploaded to the survey as records of the data you provided as proof of your submission for each quarter.

You can log back in and look at the Submission Confirmation screen where you will be able to view your submission time and download a PDF of your survey response if you reported for a single location. 

If you reported for multiple locations at one time, you can download a confirmation receipt on this screen. Keep the spreadsheets you uploaded to the survey as records of the data you provided for each quarter. 

The survey covers establishments in the mining, manufacturing, and wholesale industries, selected retail and service industries, as well as auxiliary establishments that support these industries.

The Census Bureau makes every effort to limit respondent burden. Specific sampling requirements based upon a combination of industry, geography, and firm size, may make it necessary to include your company in the survey.

Your company name and address were selected from a sampling frame extracted from the Census Bureau’s comprehensive centralized database of business establishments throughout the United States.

The Expanded Hazardous Materials Supplement collects data about the packaging types used to transport hazardous materials throughout the country. At the request of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), and in coordination with the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), these additional questions have been added to the first and fourth quarters of the 2022 Commodity Flow Survey (CFS). CFS respondents who reported shipping hazardous materials at any time during 2021 or 2022 will be asked these questions.

The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) is a U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) agency, responsible for the regulation of hazardous materials transportation by highway, rail, air, water, and pipeline. PHMSA’s mission is to protect people and the environment by advancing the safe transportation of energy and other hazardous materials that are essential to our daily lives.

Adding these questions to the CFS will provide PHMSA with national estimates on the packaging of hazardous materials offered for transportation. This level of data is critical to PHMSA and is needed to determine the impact of changes to hazardous materials shipping rules and regulatory requirements. This data will help PHMSA avoid and eliminate burdensome regulation and quickly and precisely calculate the changing risks associated with the transport of hazardous materials.

A hazardous material is a substance or material that the Secretary of Transportation has determined is capable of posing an unreasonable risk to health, safety, and property when transported in commerce, and has designated as hazardous under section 5103 of Federal hazardous materials transportation law (49 U.S.C. 5103).

For additional information about classifying hazardous materials, please refer to the Department of Transportation’s Check the Box website: CheckTheBox.dot.gov. This website provides guidance on the classification and shipping of hazardous materials. Contact the Hazardous Materials Information Center by telephone at 1-800-467-4922 or by e-mail at infocntr@dot.gov for assistance with the classification of hazardous materials and authorized packaging’s.

The Expanded Hazardous Materials Supplement collects data about the packaging types used to transport hazardous materials throughout the country. For a specified shipping location, we will ask questions about the top three most frequently shipped hazardous materials. These include questions about the packaging, quantity, and mode of transportation used when shipping these hazardous materials. Due to the nature of these questions, answering them may require assistance from someone familiar with how hazardous materials are packaged and shipped (i.e., someone familiar with Environmental/Hazardous Materials Safety, Dangerous Goods Regulatory Compliance, or Logistics).