January 4, 2011

Customs Examination Charges are fees for Customs mandated exams.  Some of these examines take a few minutes, others a few hours and in the name of security Customs will not communicate what they are looking for, what they have found, who is so designated and who gets the free-pass on the exams.

Most ocean containers that arrive in the U.S. are now designated for x-ray exams.  Some before loading on ships overseas, others after they arrive and then some take on additional exams and x-rays. 

The average examination fee for one of these containers start at about $250 and goes up from there. 

If for some reason Customs has not completed their exams in the free-time, storage and demurrage starts to accrue by both the terminals and the ocean carriers. If you do not pay these fees, you do not get your cargo.

This is no different then the exams done at the USA/Canada borders.  In the past, many of these exams were done at the Ambassador Bridge (there may be some of those continuing depending on what Customs is looking for). 

U.S. Customs has selected an outside warehouse to conduct the unloading and reloading of these trucks at a Centralized Exam Site (CES) in Detroit.  This facility opened in November, 2010 following the opening of a similar facility in Port Huron the year before.  It is expected that all major border crossings will have this type of exam site before the end of the year.

As these exams are mandated and mandatory by U.S. Customs, the facility will charge for the services performed on the cargo.  These costs will need to be passed on to the owner of the cargo.  Because most importers do not have accounts with the CES, to facilitate and expedite the exam, these charges are billed to Dell Will who will pass these costs on.