"How CBP Import Holds, Exams, and Alerts Actually Work"

• CBP "import alerts" (holds, exams, requests-for-information) are triggered mostly by CSMS messages, PGA (partner-government-agency) filters, and Automated Targeting System (ATS) risk scores — not random inspection.
• CF-28 (Request for Information) is not an accusation; it's a paper request. Answer it fully and on time (usually 30 days) or it turns into a CF-29 (Notice of Action) and, potentially, a rate advance.
• The single biggest triggers of CPSC-related import holds are missing/mismatched certificates of compliance at entry, misdeclared HTS codes on children's products, and CBP's own random sampling of high-risk product categories.
• A "hold intact" order stops the container from moving to the FTZ or the DC — bonded storage charges start accruing immediately and compound faster than most importers plan for.
• The defense is an evidence file assembled before entry, not after the hold — CPC, test report, tracking-label photos, bill-of-materials pinned to the specific SKU and cohort.

Key stat: CBP's Automated Targeting System (ATS) applies statistical + rules-based risk scoring to every entry — importers with a clean history and a filed CTPAT membership get materially lower scores, materially fewer holds.

A plain-English map of the machine that just grabbed your container — who's holding it, why, what it costs, and how you get it back.

You know the message. It arrives at the worst possible time, usually a Friday.

"Heads up — shipment is on hold, CBP exam. Not sure why yet, will update when I hear more."

That's it. No reason. No timeline. No person to call. Meanwhile the container sits at the port, the demurrage clock is running at something like $150-plus a day and climbing, your customer is asking where their product is, and your broker — who is not being cagey, they genuinely often don't know yet — can't tell you if this is a routine x-ray that clears in 48 hours or the opening move in a six-month valuation fight.

Nobody explains the machine to you. Not on purpose — it's just that CBP's job is enforcement, not customer education, and most of what happens between "vessel arrives" and "cargo released" happens in systems you'll never see, run by people you'll never talk to, using rules that are scattered across the CFR, CBP directives, and institutional habit.

This is that explanation. What actually triggers a hold. What each type of hold means and roughly how long it takes. What an exam costs and who eats it (you, mostly, even when your shipment is completely clean). What a CF-28 or CF-29 really signals. Where FDA's "import alert" fits in — and why it's a different animal from anything CBP does. And what you can actually do about any of it, today and going forward.

I'm not a lawyer, and nothing here is legal advice — when real money or a seizure is on the table, you want a licensed customs attorney, not a blog post. But you should understand the machine before you call one.

Before your container is even on the water, it's already been scored.

CBP runs an internal system called the Automated Targeting System (ATS). It ingests your entry data, manifest data, and Importer Security Filing (ISF, aka "10+2") data and spits out a risk score CBP uses to decide who gets a look and who sails through. This isn't speculation about a black box — CBP has publicly described ATS as the tool that assigns risk levels to arriving cargo so officers can focus limited inspection resources where they matter. What you'll never get is your actual score, or a clean list of every factor that moved it. CBP treats that as law-enforcement-sensitive for the obvious reason: publish the formula and everyone games it.

What we do know, from CBP guidance, trade press, broker experience, and plain logic about how risk-scoring systems work, is the shape of the inputs:

Importer history. A brand-new importer number with no track record reads as unknown risk, which functions like elevated risk. An importer with years of clean entries, consistent classifications, and no prior CF-28s reads as known-quantity and gets more benefit of the doubt.

Supplier and factory history. A new supplier, especially one CBP has flagged before under a different importer's entries, raises the score. This is one reason switching factories can quietly increase your exam rate even though nothing about your product changed.

HTS code sensitivity. Some tariff codes are just hotter than others — textiles and apparel (long history of transshipment and origin fraud), steel and aluminum products (Section 232 exposure), electronics with IP concerns, anything touching forced-labor supply chains (Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act regions), and consumer products that fall under CPSC or FDA jurisdiction.

Country of origin. Countries with a documented history of transshipment fraud, forced labor concerns, or antidumping/countervailing duty evasion get closer scrutiny across the board. This isn't personal to you — it's baked into the country-level risk model.

Prior violations — yours or anyone in the chain. A previous CF-29 rate advance, a prior seizure, a pattern of ISF timeliness failures, or issues tied to your customs broker or freight forwarder can all follow you.

Valuation anomalies. If your declared value looks low relative to similar goods in that HTS code from that origin, that's a classic valuation-fraud pattern and it gets flagged.

Random and statistical selection. Some percentage of exams happen purely for quality-control sampling — CBP needs a random baseline to know if targeted selection is actually working. If you get pulled and nothing about your shipment looks unusual, this is often why.

The uncomfortable truth: you will never see this score, you can appeal a hold but not a targeting decision, and the system is designed that way on purpose. What you can do is manage the inputs you control — which is most of section 10 of this piece.

"On hold" is not one thing. It's a bucket term brokers use because the real answer — which specific hold code CBP or a partner government agency (PGA) attached to your entry — usually takes them a phone call or an ABI query to pin down. Here's the field map.

| Hold Type | Who Sets It | What It Usually Means | Typical Timeline | |---|---|---|---| | Manifest hold | CBP (cargo control) | Discrepancy between manifest and entry data, or missing/incomplete ISF | Hours to a few days once corrected | | Statistical/random exam | CBP (ATS baseline sampling) | No specific suspicion — quality-control sample | Days to about a week, port-dependent | | CET / A-TCET (contraband enforcement) hold | CBP (Contraband Enforcement Team) | Suspected narcotics, currency, or other contraband concealment | Days to weeks; can escalate fast if something is found | | PGA hold — FDA | FDA, enforced through CBP | Product falls under FDA jurisdiction (food, drugs, devices, cosmetics) and needs review, or is tied to a Detention Without Physical Examination (import alert) listing | Days for routine review; indefinite if DWPE applies and you don't rebut it | | PGA hold — CPSC | CPSC, enforced through CBP | Consumer product flagged for compliance sampling or a known hazard pattern | Days to a few weeks | | PGA hold — USDA/APHIS | USDA | Agricultural products, wood packaging, plant/animal-product concerns | Days to weeks, inspection-dependent | | PGA hold — Fish & Wildlife | F&W Service | Wildlife products, CITES-listed species concerns | Days to weeks; can be longer for species ID disputes | | Intensive/enforcement exam | CBP (targeted, from ATS or intel) | Specific suspicion tied to valuation, classification, origin, or IP | 1-3 weeks commonly, longer if a CF-28 is issued |

A few things worth underlining. First, a "hold" and an "exam" are related but not identical — a hold can exist without a physical exam (paperwork review only), and an exam can happen fast without much of a hold delay. Second, multiple holds can stack on one entry — a manifest discrepancy plus a PGA flag is common and each one has its own release condition, so your broker has to clear all of them, not just one. Third, all of these timelines are honest ranges, not promises. Port congestion, staffing, and the specific CES queue length matter as much as the underlying reason for the hold. Anyone who gives you a hard date on day one is guessing.

Once CBP decides to look inside (or through) your container, there's a hierarchy of how invasive that look gets, and each level has a real dollar cost attached — almost always to you, the importer, regardless of outcome.

NII / VACIS exam (non-intrusive inspection). This is the x-ray or gamma-ray scan — the container passes through a scanner, an officer reviews the image, and if nothing looks off, it's released without anyone opening the doors. Fastest and cheapest option, often same-day to a couple of days. You typically still pay a fee for the scan itself (varies by port and terminal, commonly in the low hundreds of dollars) plus whatever drayage/trucking was needed to move the container to the scanner.

Tailgate exam. An officer opens the container doors and looks at the first few feet of cargo without full unload. Quick, relatively cheap, but if anything looks inconsistent with the manifest it escalates to a full devanning.

Intensive exam / devanning at a Centralized Examination Station (CES). This is the expensive one. The full container gets trucked to a CES — a bonded, CBP-approved facility, often privately operated — where it's completely unloaded, cargo is inspected piece by piece or by representative sample, and then (assuming release) reloaded. You are on the hook for drayage to and from the CES, CES handling and labor fees, and any demurrage or per-diem that accrues at the port while all of this happens. Total costs for a full devanning commonly run into four figures for a standard container, and can go higher depending on cargo complexity, port, and how long the exam queue is — treat any specific number you hear as a rough approximation until your broker quotes your actual port and CES.

The part that makes people furious: if the exam finds nothing wrong, you still pay. There is no reimbursement mechanism for a clean exam. CBP's position, reasonably, is that inspection is a cost of doing business in international trade, not a service you're owed compensation for avoiding. This is one of the real answers in the FAQ below because it surprises almost everyone the first time.

Demurrage and detention charges are a separate meter running the whole time, charged by the terminal and/or carrier, not CBP — and they do not pause because CBP has your container. Free time typically runs out days after arrival regardless of hold status, which is exactly why "stop the bleed" options (below, in the runbook) matter so much.

A CF-28 (Customs Form 28, "Request for Information") is not a random paperwork ask. It means an import specialist is building or testing a theory about your entry — usually one of three: is the declared value real, is the classification correct, or is the claimed country of origin accurate.

Read the specific questions carefully, because they tell you exactly what CBP is testing. A request for your purchase order, payment records, and any assists or royalties paid to the seller is a valuation inquiry. A request for product literature, technical specs, or samples is a classification inquiry. A request for manufacturing records, bills of materials, or factory documentation is an origin inquiry — increasingly common for goods that could plausibly be transshipped through a third country to dodge antidumping duties or Section 301/232 tariffs.

You get 30 days to respond. That clock is real — CBP can, and does, issue a Notice of Action or move toward liquidated-damages action if you go silent past the deadline. Ask your broker or counsel for an extension if you need one; a request made before the deadline is usually granted, a no-show after it is not treated kindly.

How to answer well:

• Answer exactly what's asked. Don't editorialize, don't explain your whole supply chain unprompted.
• Provide the documents requested, complete and consistent with what's already on file. Inconsistency between your CF-28 response and your entry paperwork is worse than almost anything else you could submit.
• Keep a paper trail of everything you send and when.
• If the request touches valuation and there's any related-party pricing, transfer pricing study, or first-sale structure involved, get a customs broker or attorney to review your answer before it goes out — this is exactly the kind of question that turns into a rate advance if answered casually.

What NOT to volunteer: don't attach unrelated shipment history, don't speculate about intent ("we weren't sure if this classification was right, we just guessed"), and don't offer up problems CBP didn't ask about. A CF-28 is a specific, scoped request. Treat it that way. If your answer accidentally surfaces a different, unrelated compliance gap, that's now a separate problem — possibly one better handled through prior disclosure (see section 8) than volunteered mid-response to a targeted question.

If the CF-28 was CBP testing a theory, the CF-29 (Notice of Action) is CBP telling you what they concluded. It comes in two flavors and the difference matters enormously.

"Proposed" action. CBP is telling you what they intend to do — reclassify your goods, advance the value, change the origin determination, assess additional duties — and giving you a window (commonly around 20 days, confirm the exact date on your specific notice) to respond with evidence or argument before it becomes final. This is your best and often last chance to change the outcome before money changes hands. Treat a "proposed" CF-29 with real urgency; silence here is read as agreement.

"Taken" action. CBP has already made the determination final. The classification is reclassified, the rate is advanced, duties are owed. At this point your remedy isn't to argue with the import specialist anymore — it's to file a formal protest (section 8) if you disagree, because the administrative decision has already been made on the entry.

A rate advance on a CF-29 is exactly what it sounds like: CBP decided your goods should have been classified under a higher-duty HTS code, or valued higher, or both, and you now owe the difference — sometimes with interest, sometimes across every entry going back within the relevant time period if CBP treats it as a pattern rather than a one-off. This is why a CF-28 on valuation that looks like a minor paperwork request can turn into a five- or six-figure liability if it reveals a systemic classification error you've been making across dozens of prior entries.

Your response options to a proposed CF-29: submit evidence rebutting the theory (better documentation, an outside classification opinion, corrected paperwork showing the original position was right), negotiate a partial concession if the specialist has a point on part of it, or accept it and move on if you genuinely got it wrong and the amount doesn't justify a fight. Know which one you're in before you respond — guessing wrong here is expensive.

Here's the distinction the whole industry gets sloppy about, and it's worth being precise, because the fixes are completely different depending on which one you're actually facing.

CBP's ladder is about the goods' admissibility and is governed by regulation, primarily 19 CFR 151.16. When CBP detains merchandise, they're required to notify you of the detention, and if they don't decide within a set period whether the goods are admissible, the detention can effectively convert to a deemed exclusion — which then starts your clock to protest. Detention is the "we're deciding" phase. Exclusion is CBP's formal determination that the goods may not enter U.S. commerce — this could be because of a classification/marking issue, an IP violation, a PGA requirement that wasn't met, or missing documentation. Exclusion is protestable. Seizure is the most severe step, generally used when CBP has legal grounds to believe the merchandise is being imported contrary to law (fraud, prohibited goods, IP counterfeiting, undeclared contraband) — this is a law enforcement action under authority including 19 U.S.C. 1595a, and it's handled through CBP's fines, penalties, and forfeiture process, not a routine protest.

FDA's "Import Alert" is a completely different mechanism and it does not come from CBP. An FDA Import Alert places a product, manufacturer, shipper, or even an entire product category from a specific country onto a list subject to Detention Without Physical Examination (DWPE). Practically: if your product or supplier is on an active import alert, FDA presumes your shipment is a violation the moment it arrives — CBP will hold it at FDA's instruction, and the burden shifts to you to prove the specific shipment is NOT violative, typically through private lab testing and documentation submitted to FDA, before it gets released. You can search FDA's own Import Alert database at fda.gov to check whether your product category, country, or specific manufacturer is currently listed — this is something you should genuinely check proactively, not just after a hold hits, because DWPE listings are public and searchable.

The confusion is completely understandable and it's exactly why this article opens with it: your broker says "CBP put a hold on it for FDA reasons" and you hear "CBP import alert," but there's no such thing. CBP is the enforcement arm carrying out FDA's instruction. FDA owns the alert, the DWPE listing, and the release criteria. CBP owns the physical hold and the release mechanics once FDA clears it. If you're dealing with an FDA-regulated product, your fight (lab testing, private-lab data submission, FDA correspondence) is with FDA even though the container is sitting at a CBP-controlled terminal.

Not a lawyer, not legal advice — but if you're staring down an exclusion, seizure, or an active DWPE listing tied to real money, this is the moment to bring in customs counsel rather than negotiate solo.

If you import consumer products — toys, juvenile products, electronics, anything a kid could plausibly put in their mouth — the Consumer Product Safety Commission is the partner government agency most likely to touch your shipments, and its process runs on a different rhythm than FDA's.

CPSC doesn't maintain a public DWPE-style list the way FDA does. Instead, CPSC works port surveillance in coordination with CBP, using data from the Commercial Information Linkage for Enforcement (part of the broader PGA Message Set / ACE integration) to identify shipments that look risky based on product category, importer history, and known hazard patterns for that product type. This is where eFiling matters: CPSC requires electronic filing of specific data elements (importer of record, product certificate info, manufacturer details) for regulated consumer products at time of entry, and that data feeds directly into the targeting decision. Incomplete or sloppy eFiling data is itself a red flag — it reads to the system the same way a new, unknown importer does.

What a CPSC hold or sample request typically looks like in practice: CBP holds the shipment at CPSC's instruction, and CPSC or its contracted lab requests physical samples be pulled and sent for testing — lead content, small parts/choking hazard testing, flammability, mechanical hazards, whatever's relevant to the product category and applicable standard (ASTM F963 for toys, 16 CFR parts for various juvenile products, etc.). You're generally required to have a Children's Product Certificate (CPC) or General Certificate of Conformity (GCC) on file and consistent with third-party lab testing already done before the goods ever left the factory — if that documentation exists and matches, a CPSC review often clears without a drawn-out fight. If it doesn't exist or doesn't match, you're now doing testing under a demurrage clock instead of before you shipped, which is a much worse position.

The practical lesson: for anyone shipping regulated consumer products, your CPSC compliance file (certificates, test reports, factory audit data) should exist and be current before a container ever gets flagged, not assembled reactively once a hold hits. This is also exactly the kind of documentation gap that shows up as a pattern in your targeting profile over time — see section 9.

Once CBP has made a decision against you, you're not out of options — you just have to use the right tool for the specific stage you're in.

Protest under 19 U.S.C. 1514. This is your primary remedy once CBP has taken final action on liquidation — classification, valuation, rate advances, exclusions, and most other decisions on an entry are protestable. You generally have 180 days from the date of liquidation (or from the decision being protested) to file. Miss that window and the decision becomes final regardless of merit, so don't sit on a CF-29 "taken" action hoping it resolves itself. A protest is filed with the port that made the decision and requires you to actually make the case — new evidence, legal argument, prior CBP rulings on similar goods — not just express disagreement.

Petition for relief on seizures. If merchandise has been seized rather than just excluded, protest isn't the mechanism — you petition for relief under CBP's fines, penalties, and forfeiture procedures, essentially asking CBP to return the goods or mitigate the penalty rather than pursue full forfeiture. Seizure cases are meaningfully more serious than a protest situation and the stakes (potential loss of the goods entirely, penalty exposure) are why this is squarely lawyer territory for anything beyond trivial value.

Prior disclosure under 19 U.S.C. 1592. This is the tool most importers don't know exists until they need it, and it can be the single highest-leverage move available. If you discover — on your own, through an internal audit, a broker catching something, whatever — that you've been misclassifying, undervaluing, or otherwise making entries incorrectly, and you disclose it to CBP before CBP starts an investigation into it, you get dramatically reduced penalty exposure (potentially limited to unpaid duties plus interest, rather than the much steeper penalties 1592 otherwise allows for negligence or fraud). The catch is timing: it only works if you get there first. Once CBP has already initiated a formal investigation or you've received a pre-penalty notice, that door closes. This is precisely why finding your own errors and getting ahead of them matters — see section 10 — and it's a case where "should I lawyer up" has a clear answer: yes, before you file, because prior disclosure has specific procedural requirements (tender of duties, specific format) that you want done right the first time since there's no do-over.

When to actually get a lawyer, in rough order of stakes: a seizure, any prior disclosure, a proposed CF-29 involving real money (low five figures and up is a reasonable personal threshold), a pattern of enforcement suggesting a formal investigation is coming, or anything where CBP alleges fraud rather than negligence. Below that, a good customs broker with compliance experience can often handle it — but "good broker" and "compliance-savvy broker" are not the same thing, and it's worth knowing which one you have before you need them.

There's no CBP letter that says "you are now on elevated targeting." You infer it from patterns, and once you see the pattern, it's worth acting on rather than treating each hold as an isolated bad-luck event.

Signs you're likely on elevated targeting:

• Every single shipment gets examined, not just occasionally — a genuinely random sampling rate shouldn't hit you every time.
• Repeated CF-28s specifically on valuation across different entries, especially if they're asking the same category of question each time.
• Your broker starts seeing "documents required" or a hold flag on nearly every entry summary before the goods even arrive.
• A prior CF-29 rate advance or a prior seizure/penalty on your importer number — this tends to have a long tail; CBP doesn't forget quickly.
• A new supplier relationship where the factory itself may have prior flags under other importers' names, which you'd have no visibility into until it shows up as your problem.

How importers actually get off elevated targeting, based on how the system is built to reward reduced risk over time:

Clean track record, sustained. Risk scoring is dynamic — it's not a permanent mark, it's a rolling assessment. A stretch of consistent, accurate, on-time entries genuinely does move your risk profile down over time. There's no shortcut for this one; it's just time plus discipline.

Broker communication and responsiveness. A broker who answers CF-28s promptly, completely, and consistently — versus one who's slow or gives inconsistent answers across different requests — is itself a data point CBP's import specialists notice, even if it's not a formal scoring input. Import specialists are people who handle the same importers repeatedly; reputation is real even in a mostly-automated system.

CTPAT membership. The Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism is CBP's voluntary supply-chain security certification program. Certified members generally see meaningfully reduced exam rates, front-of-line processing when they are examined, and access to a dedicated CBP supply chain security specialist as a point of contact — which alone is worth a lot compared to the anonymity most importers deal with. CTPAT isn't free (it requires a real security-practices overhaul and audit, documented at cbp.gov), and it's not instant, but for any importer moving meaningful volume who keeps landing on the wrong side of targeting, it's the single most direct lever CBP itself put in place for exactly this problem.

Everything in this section is unglamorous. None of it will get discussed on a trade-compliance panel. All of it is what actually keeps your containers moving.

Consistent classification. Pick the right HTS code once, with actual research or a binding ruling if the product is ambiguous, and use it every time. Classification drift — the same product entering under different codes across shipments because different people at your company or your broker made the call independently — is one of the most common things that triggers a CF-28, because it looks exactly like what it usually is: someone guessing.

Clean invoices and descriptions. "Parts" or "accessories" as a line-item description is an invitation for scrutiny. A specific, accurate product description that matches your classification, your PO, and your packing list is boring and it works.

ISF filed on time. The Importer Security Filing (10+2) has to be filed at least 24 hours before the vessel loads at the foreign port for ocean shipments. Late or inaccurate ISF filings carry liquidated damages exposure of up to $5,000 per violation — and beyond the direct penalty, a pattern of ISF timeliness problems is itself a targeting signal, because it reads as an operationally sloppy importer, which correlates (in CBP's model and honestly in reality) with other compliance gaps.

Supplier vetting. Know who you're actually buying from, confirm the factory matches what's on your paperwork, and be wary of suppliers who are cagey about country of origin or who suggest creative documentation. Origin fraud isn't always the importer's doing — sometimes you're the one left holding the CF-28 for a supplier's transshipment scheme you didn't know about.

CTPAT, if your volume justifies it. Covered above, but it belongs here too: this is the single structural investment that changes your baseline exam rate rather than just helping you survive individual holds better.

Know before you ship. Check FDA's Import Alert database if you're in FDA-regulated categories. Check for open antidumping/countervailing duty orders on your product/origin combination. Check for active Section 301 or 232 tariff actions. Most import surprises aren't actually surprises — they were published somewhere weeks or months earlier, in a Federal Register notice or an agency database nobody on your team was watching.

None of this guarantees you never get held. Statistical/random exams exist precisely so that even perfect importers occasionally get picked. But clean hygiene is the difference between an occasional random exam that clears in days, and a standing pattern that puts you on a broker's "here we go again" list every single shipment.

When the "your shipment is on hold" message actually lands, here's the sequence, hour by hour and day by day.

Hour 0-2: Get the specifics from your broker. Don't accept "on hold" as an answer. Ask specifically: what hold code, which agency (CBP or which PGA), and is this a documented request or a physical exam. Your broker can pull this from ABI/ACE — if they don't have it yet, ask them to check and call back same day, not "when I hear something."

Hour 2-24: Identify the exam type and likely track. NII/VACIS scan (fast) versus intensive devanning at a CES (slow and expensive) versus a pure PGA documentation hold (can be fast if your paperwork is already clean). This determines whether you're managing a 2-day problem or a 2-3 week problem, which changes everything downstream, including whether it's worth expediting freight for a replacement shipment.

Day 1-3: Stop the demurrage bleed — know your options. Ask your broker/carrier about a General Order transfer or moving the container to a bonded, cheaper storage location if the hold is going to run long — this can be materially cheaper than terminal demurrage/per-diem, though it does add its own drayage cost, so it's a math problem, not an automatic move. Ask the terminal about last-free-day extensions (sometimes negotiable, especially with an ongoing relationship). If demurrage is CBP-caused delay specifically, some carriers/terminals have waiver or dispute processes — ask, don't assume there's nothing to be done.

Day 1-30: Document request response protocol. If a CF-28 lands, log the deadline immediately (30 days) and route it to whoever owns your compliance documentation — don't let it sit in a shared inbox. Pull the requested documents only, verify they're internally consistent with what's already on file with CBP, and if the request touches valuation with any related-party or first-sale complexity, loop in your broker's compliance team or counsel before sending anything.

Escalation ladder, if the hold isn't resolving:

1. Broker's compliance desk (not just your day-to-day account rep).
2. The port's import specialist directly, if your broker can get you a name — most will, if you ask.
3. CBP's Center of Excellence and Expertise for your product's industry, which increasingly owns entry decisions instead of the local port.
4. A customs attorney, once you're looking at a CF-29 "taken" action, a proposed exclusion, or anything seizure-adjacent.
5. If PGA-specific (FDA/CPSC), the agency's own import division directly — CBP genuinely can't release goods a PGA is holding, so pressure applied only at CBP is often wasted effort past a certain point.

Related reading: EntryProof CPSC readiness check CPSIA regulations plain-English guide CPSC eFiling for FBA sellers Section 232 tariff exposure guide

How long can CBP hold my shipment? There's no fixed universal limit — it depends on the hold type. Detention decisions are governed by timelines under 19 CFR 151.16, and if CBP doesn't act within the required period, it can be treated as a deemed exclusion, which starts your protest clock. In practice, routine exams clear in days to about two weeks; PGA holds tied to an active FDA DWPE listing or an unresolved CPSC sample request can run much longer if you don't respond, because the burden is on you to resolve it.

Do I get compensated if the exam finds nothing? No. You pay exam-related fees, drayage, and any demurrage that accrued regardless of outcome. There is no CBP reimbursement mechanism for a clean exam. This is genuinely one of the most frustrating parts of the system and it surprises nearly everyone the first time it happens to them.

What's the difference between a CBP hold and an FDA import alert? A CBP hold is CBP's own action (or CBP acting on a PGA's instruction) to detain your shipment pending review. An FDA Import Alert is a separate, FDA-specific mechanism that places a product, manufacturer, or country category onto a Detention Without Physical Examination (DWPE) list — meaning FDA presumes future shipments are violative until you prove otherwise. CBP carries out the physical hold; FDA owns the listing and the release decision. Check FDA's own import alert database at fda.gov if you suspect this applies to you.

Should I answer a CF-28 myself or get a lawyer? For a straightforward documentation request with clean, consistent paperwork, most compliance-savvy brokers can handle it fine. If the request touches valuation with related-party pricing, reveals a possible pattern across multiple past entries, or you're not fully confident your existing paperwork is consistent with what you're about to submit, get a customs broker's compliance team or an attorney to review before you send anything — a bad CF-28 answer can turn a routine inquiry into a rate advance.

What triggers a CBP exam versus a random pick? Targeted exams come from CBP's Automated Targeting System scoring your entry based on factors like importer history, supplier history, HTS code sensitivity, country of origin, and prior violations. Random/statistical exams happen regardless of risk score, as a quality-control sample. You generally can't tell which one you got from the outside — the release outcome looks the same either way.

What is demurrage and why does it keep running during a hold? Demurrage is a per-day fee the terminal or carrier charges for a container sitting past its free time — it's separate from and unrelated to CBP's hold. CBP doesn't pause it, and neither does the terminal automatically, which is why "stop the bleed" options like General Order transfer or last-free-day negotiation matter so much once a hold looks like it'll run past your free days.

What's a CF-28 versus a CF-29? A CF-28 is a Request for Information — CBP asking you to provide documents or answers because they're testing a theory. A CF-29 is a Notice of Action — CBP telling you what they've decided (or propose to decide) about your entry, such as a reclassification or rate advance. The CF-28 comes first, usually; the CF-29 is the conclusion.

Can I protest a random exam I think was unfair? Not really, and not in the sense of overturning the targeting decision itself — CBP doesn't disclose or litigate the risk score. What you can protest under 19 U.S.C. 1514 is a final decision made as a result of that exam — a classification change, valuation rate advance, or exclusion — within 180 days of the decision. The exam itself, absent a bad outcome from it, isn't something there's a formal appeal process for.

What is prior disclosure and when should I use it? If you discover on your own that you've made entry errors — wrong classification, undervaluation, wrong origin claims — disclosing it to CBP under 19 U.S.C. 1592 before CBP opens an investigation can dramatically reduce your penalty exposure, often down to unpaid duties plus interest rather than steeper negligence or fraud penalties. It only works if you get there first, so this is worth doing proactively through periodic internal audits rather than waiting to find out CBP found it before you did.

Does CTPAT membership actually reduce exam rates? CBP's own program design gives certified CTPAT members reduced exam rates and front-of-line processing when exams do happen, plus a dedicated CBP contact. It requires a genuine supply-chain security upgrade and an audit process to get certified, and it's a bigger lift for smaller importers, but for anyone moving meaningful volume and repeatedly landing on the wrong side of targeting, it's the most direct structural fix CBP itself offers.

Is a seizure the same as a hold? No, and the difference matters a lot. A hold or detention means CBP is still deciding whether your goods are admissible. A seizure means CBP has already concluded there are legal grounds to believe the goods were imported contrary to law (fraud, contraband, IP violation, etc.) under authority including 19 U.S.C. 1595a, and it moves into a fines, penalties, and forfeiture process rather than a standard release-or-exclude decision. If you're facing a seizure, that's the point to get a customs attorney involved, not negotiate it solo.

• CBP Automated Targeting System — Privacy Impact Assessment (DHS/CBP canonical ATS description).
• CBP Form 28 — Request for Information — the actual form and its response window.

• Amazon FBA CPSC eFiling compliance checklist (2026)
• CPSIA regulations in plain English
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• EntryProof pricing