Practice areas > Bonded Warehouse Applications

With over 300 ports of entry in the United States, including the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, many businesses find establishing their own bonded warehouse(s) to be advantageous.

To do so, a lengthy application must be completed and filed with the local port’s U.S. Customs’ director. Information must be provided that gives detailed information about the physical features of the warehouse site (including a blueprint), as well as giving its location, a certificate of fire insurability by an independent underwriter, and the intended warehouse classification.

The U.S. government recognizes eleven types of bonded warehouses, each defined within its own class. (These are listed below, as they are described under federal law.)

Bonded Warehouse Application Requirements Vary According to Classification

All applications for warehouses except Class 2 or Class 7 facilities must reveal if they will be operated as public bonded warehouses or used solely by the applicant. Private use will require that the applicant report to the federal officials not only what type of merchandise will be stored in its private warehouse, but the maximum duties and taxes that will be due on the goods at any set time.

Customs officials can also require identification of the applicant’s personnel, including not only their names and personal addresses, but their fingerprints, as well. The list can require officers and principals of the company along with all of its employees. This is true, regardless of the warehouse’s intended classification.

Duty free shops have special requirements. Designated as a Class 9 Bonded Warehouse under federal law, duty free shop applicants must provide Customs officials with information regarding the location, exit-points, record keeping systems, and confirmation of local government approvals of the facility.

List of Bonded Warehouse Classifications

According to 19 C.F.R. 19.1, bonded warehouses are classified as:

(1) Class 1. Premises that may be owned or leased by the Government, when the exigencies of the service as determined by the port director so require, and used for the storage of merchandise undergoing examination by Customs, under seizure, or pending final release from Customs custody. Merchandise will be stored in such premises only at Customs direction and will be held under general order.

(2) Class 2. Importers' private bonded warehouses used exclusively for the storage of merchandise belonging or consigned to the proprietor thereof. A warehouse of class 4 or 5 may be bonded exclusively for the storage of goods imported by the proprietor thereof, in which case it shall be known as a private bonded warehouse.

(3) Class 3. Public bonded warehouses used exclusively for the storage of imported merchandise.

(4) Class 4. Bonded yards or sheds for the storage of heavy and bulky imported merchandise; stables, feeding pens, corrals, or other similar buildings or limited enclosures for the storage of imported animals; and tanks for the storage of imported liquid merchandise in bulk. If the port director deems it necessary, the yards shall be enclosed by substantial fences with entrances and exit gates capable of being secured by the proprietor's locks. The inlets and outlets to tanks shall be secured by means of seals or the proprietor's locks.

(5) Class 5. Bonded bins or parts of buildings or of elevators to be used for the storage of grain. The bonded portions shall be effectively separated from the rest of the building.

(6) Class 6. Warehouses for the manufacture in bond, solely for exportation, of articles made in whole or in part of imported materials or of materials subject to internal-revenue tax; and for the manufacture for home consumption or exportation of cigars in whole of tobacco imported from one country.

(7) Class 7. Warehouses bonded for smelting and refining imported metal-bearing materials for exportation or domestic consumption.

(8) Class 8. Bonded warehouses established for the purpose of cleaning, sorting, repacking, or otherwise changing in condition, but not manufacturing, imported merchandise, under Customs supervision and at the expense of the proprietor.

(9) Class 9. Bonded warehouse, known as duty-free stores, used for selling, for use outside the Customs territory, conditionally duty-free merchandise owned or sold by the proprietor and delivered from the Class 9 warehouse to an airport or other exit point for exportation by, or on behalf of, individuals departing from the Customs territory for destinations other than foreign trade zones. Pursuant to 19 U.S.C. 1555(b)(8)(C), Customs territory, for purposes of duty-free stores, means the Customs territory of the U.S. as defined in 101.1(e) of this chapter, and foreign trade zones (see part 146 of this chapter). All distribution warehouses used exclusively to provide individual duty-free sales locations and storage cribs with conditionally duty-free merchandise are also Class 9 warehouses.

(10) [Reserved]

(11) Class 11. Bonded warehouses, known as general order warehouses, established for the storage and disposition exclusively of general order merchandise as described in 127.1 of this chapter.

Fuerst Ittleman Assists Clients in Applying for Bonded Warehouses