A 90-day clock set by the White House on June 3 runs out on Tuesday, September 1, 2026, and when it does the economics of getting an import declaration wrong in the United States change materially. Executive Order 14411, titled “Strengthening Customs Enforcement,” directs the Secretary of Homeland Security to rewrite the rules that let importers negotiate their way out of customs penalties, and to make it faster and cheaper for US Customs and Border Protection to seize, abandon and destroy shipments it deems non-compliant.
The order was signed on June 3, 2026 and published in the Federal Register on June 10, 2026 under document number 2026-11595. Most commentary at the time focused on its 180-day tranche, which will reshape who is allowed to be an importer of record at all. The 90-day tranche arriving this week is narrower, but it is the part that bites first, and it applies to importers who are already inside the system rather than only to those trying to enter it.
For retail and e-commerce the timing is uncomfortable. September 2026 already carries two other hard customs dates, and the first full peak season without the $800 de minimis exemption starts loading containers now. The order does not raise a single tariff rate. It changes what happens after a mistake, and for high-volume, low-margin importers that is arguably the more expensive variable.
In short
- Date: Tuesday, September 1, 2026 is the 90-day deadline under Executive Order 14411, signed June 3, 2026.
- Penalties: CBP must set a minimum penalty floor of not less than 50 percent of the assessed penalty, absent exceptional circumstances, and must eliminate mitigation entirely for repeat offenders.
- Seizure: DHS must expedite seizure and disposal of non-compliant imports, reduce the regulatory friction around voluntary abandonment, raise bonds on high-risk shipments and authorize third-party disposal under 19 U.S.C. 1612.
- Paperwork: Foreign importers of record must hand CBP the documentation they filed with their own foreign customs administration, opening a direct route to cross-check declared values.
- Exposure: The heaviest users of informal entry and low-value channels, meaning marketplace sellers and direct-from-Asia brands, sit closest to the new floor and the faster disposal track.
What actually changes on September 1
Four sections of the order carry a 90-day deadline. Read together they cover disclosure, penalties, disposal and transparency, which is most of the back end of a customs enforcement case.
Section 3(b) requires that documentation a foreign exporter is obliged to submit to its own customs administration be provided to CBP. Section 4(c) is the penalty mitigation rewrite. Section 5 is the seizure and disposal package. Section 6 obliges DHS to review confidentiality requests periodically and publish annual enforcement transparency reports.
None of these require a tariff change or new legislation. They are directives to revise agency practice and guidance, which is why they can land on a 90-day timeline while the structural provisions wait for full notice-and-comment rulemaking.
| Tranche | Date | What it requires | Sections |
|---|---|---|---|
| 45 days | July 18, 2026 | DHS legislative recommendations on customs enforcement sent to Congress | Sec. 8 |
| 90 days | September 1, 2026 | Penalty mitigation floor, seizure and disposal overhaul, foreign export documentation, transparency reporting | Sec. 3(b), 4(c), 5, 6 |
| 180 days | Around November 30, 2026 | Importer of record eligibility, minimum bonds and tangible domestic assets, “good standing” test, registry purge, enhanced vetting | Sec. 2(a), 2(d), 2(e), 2(f) |
| 1 year | June 3, 2027 | Report to the President on the effectiveness of the order | Sec. 9 |
Client alerts from WilmerHale and Latham & Watkins both read September 1 as the operative date for the penalty mitigation rewrite. The two firms differ slightly on where the seizure and abandonment provisions sit, with WilmerHale grouping some of the disposal work with the broader regulatory overhaul, but the text of Section 5 carries the 90-day deadline on its face.
Why a 50 percent penalty floor matters more than it sounds
Customs penalties in the United States are assessed under 19 U.S.C. 1592, which scales the maximum by culpability. The assessed figure, however, has rarely been the figure anyone pays. The published mitigation guidelines at Appendix B to 19 CFR Part 171 let importers petition the number down, and in ordinary negligence cases involving cooperative importers the settled amount has historically landed well below the assessment.
The order removes most of that room. A floor set at not less than 50 percent of the assessed penalty, with an exception described in the order as reserved for exceptional circumstances materially affecting national security, converts a negotiation into an arithmetic problem. The variable that still moves is the assessment itself, not the discount.
For violations involving a loss of revenue, the statute caps the penalty by reference to the duties, taxes and fees the government was deprived of, with the multiple rising by culpability. Negligence and gross negligence sit at defined multiples of that loss, and fraud reaches the domestic value of the merchandise. Non-revenue-loss violations are scaled against the value of the goods instead.
That structure has always made culpability the expensive question. After the floor, it becomes roughly twice as expensive, because the gap between one culpability tier and the next is no longer something a well-argued petition can absorb. An importer who cannot rebut gross negligence is now looking at half of a materially larger assessment rather than a negotiated fraction of it.
What prior disclosure is worth now
Prior disclosure, the mechanism that lets an importer self-report a violation before CBP opens a formal inquiry, retains its statutory benefit of limiting exposure to the loss of revenue plus interest in many cases. What changes is everything downstream of it. If a disclosure is rejected as untimely or incomplete and the matter proceeds to assessment, the petition path that used to soften the landing is worth considerably less.
The practical consequence is that compliance spending moves upstream. Money that would have funded a penalty petition is better spent on classification review, valuation support and the bond structure that sits behind the entries in the first place. Anyone unclear on how that structure works can start with the mechanics of importer of record and customs bonds, because the bond is what CBP claims against when liquidated damages are asserted.
The order also directs elimination of mitigation for repeat offenders. It does not define the lookback period, which is one of the questions trade counsel expect to be resolved in the guidance rather than in the order itself.
| Element | Practice before September 1 | Directed practice after September 1 |
|---|---|---|
| Mitigation range | Guidelines permit reductions well below half the assessment in many negligence cases | Floor of not less than 50 percent of the assessed penalty |
| Repeat violations | Considered as an aggravating factor within the guidelines | Mitigation eliminated for repeat offenders |
| Exception | Broad set of mitigating factors available on petition | Exceptional circumstances tied to national security impact |
| Liquidated damages | Mitigated case by case against the bond | Minimum liquidated damages floor to be established |
| Where leverage sits | Post-assessment petition | Pre-entry classification, valuation and documentation |
How the seizure and disposal rules change
Section 5 of the order is short and consequential. It instructs the Secretary, to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, to “expedite and enhance the seizure and disposal of non-compliant imports.” Four specific measures follow: cutting the regulatory burdens attached to voluntary abandonment, raising bond requirements for high-risk shipments, authorizing third-party disposal, and using the authorities in 19 U.S.C. 1612.
Each of those pushes in the same direction. Today, a detained or seized shipment can sit in a bonded facility for a long time while an importer decides whether to petition, export it, or give it up, and storage accrues the whole time. The order treats that delay as the problem to solve rather than as a due process feature.
Voluntary abandonment becomes the cheap exit
Voluntary abandonment lets an importer relinquish merchandise to the government rather than fight for it or pay to store it. It has historically carried enough procedural friction that importers frequently defaulted into passive delay instead. Removing that friction gives CBP a faster route to clear inventory out of its facilities and gives importers a defined way to cap the storage bill on goods they were never going to be able to enter.
The trade-off is that abandonment is final. Goods surrendered under this route are not coming back, and abandoning a shipment does not by itself resolve any penalty exposure attached to the entry that triggered the detention. Treating abandonment as a settlement is a common and expensive misreading.
What 19 U.S.C. 1612 allows
Section 1612 is the summary forfeiture and sale authority. It applies where seized property is liable to perish, to lose substantial value through delay, or where the expense of keeping it is disproportionate to its value. In those circumstances the government can move to sale or disposal on an accelerated basis rather than waiting out the full forfeiture process.
Low-value consumer goods fit that description almost by definition. A pallet of apparel or small electronics detained at a port of entry can plausibly cost more to store and adjudicate than it is worth, which is precisely the test the statute sets. Directing CBP to lean on 1612 therefore lands hardest on the categories that dominate e-commerce imports.
The order also calls for increased bond requirements on high-risk shipments. Bonds are the mechanism through which CBP secures duties and liquidated damages, so raising them tightens working capital before any violation is proven. Combined with the minimum liquidated damages floor, a higher bond means a larger secured amount sitting behind entries that a risk model has flagged, even for importers with clean histories in a flagged category.
The foreign documentation requirement is the quiet one
Section 3(b) has attracted less attention than the penalty provisions and may prove more durable. It requires that documentation a foreign exporter must submit to its own customs administration be provided to CBP.
Undervaluation cases are hard to build because the evidence of what a shipment is really worth typically sits with a supplier outside US jurisdiction. Export declarations filed with the exporting country’s customs authority are a different matter. They are prepared by the seller, filed with a government, and often state a value, a classification and a quantity that can be compared directly against what arrived at a US port.
If CBP can require that export-side paperwork as a condition of entry, the mismatch between an export declaration and an import declaration becomes a documented discrepancy rather than an inference. That is the kind of evidence that supports a gross negligence or fraud assessment, which is exactly the tier where the new penalty floor is most painful.
The requirement also raises a practical question for anyone whose supplier handles the export side as a courtesy. Sellers who have never seen their own export declarations will need to start collecting them, and that usually means renegotiating what the supplier or forwarder is obliged to hand over. For importers weighing whether to bring that work in-house, the threshold questions are the same ones that determine when a licensed customs broker is actually required rather than merely convenient.
Why e-commerce importers carry most of the exposure
The order never uses the words “de minimis” or “e-commerce.” Its rationale section nonetheless dwells on foreign importers of record moving low-value articles, and notes that such importers have historically faced lower penalty amounts because penalties scale with value.
That is a direct description of the post-de-minimis import base. CBP processed more than 1.3 billion de minimis shipments in fiscal 2024, and when the $800 exemption was suspended that volume did not disappear. It reorganized into formal and informal entries, consolidated freight and domestic fulfillment, carrying with it a population of importers who had never previously had to think about classification or valuation at all. The Court of International Trade’s decision upholding the repeal of the $800 de minimis exemption closed the last realistic route back.
Enforcement statistics point the same way. CBP has reported that between fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2025 the number of goods seized for intellectual property rights violations more than doubled, with the total manufacturer’s suggested retail price of seized goods rising more than 122 percent. In fiscal 2025, shipments originating in China and Hong Kong accounted for roughly 67 percent of the quantity of violative merchandise seized, and CBP recorded 88,167 alternative enforcement actions alongside formal seizures.
Audit activity is climbing too. Latham & Watkins cited CBP conducting 417 audits in fiscal 2024 and 465 in fiscal 2025, with the agency tracking toward 543 in fiscal 2026. That is a modest absolute number against tens of millions of entries, but the trend line matters when mitigation is capped.
| Importer profile | Primary entry route | Main exposure after September 1 | Severity |
|---|---|---|---|
| Foreign marketplace seller, direct parcels | Informal entry, consolidated freight | Faster seizure and 1612 disposal on low-value goods; export document mismatch | High |
| US brand importing from Asian contract manufacturers | Formal entry, continuous bond | Penalty floor on valuation and classification findings | Medium to high |
| Established omnichannel retailer | Formal entry, in-house trade team | Reduced petition leverage; higher bonds on flagged categories | Medium |
| Freight forwarder or customs broker | Filer on behalf of others | Maximum penalties for due diligence failures on client vetting | Medium |
| Domestic-only wholesaler | Buys landed stock | Indirect, through supplier disruption and cost pass-through | Low |
What the September 1 tranche does not do
Three limits are worth stating plainly, because the order has been read more expansively than its text supports.
First, nothing on September 1 bars foreign importers of record from filing informal entries. That prohibition sits in Section 2(b) and arrives with the 180-day regulatory package, not this week. Second, the minimum bond and tangible domestic asset requirements are also in the 180-day tranche and require rulemaking before any number attaches to them. Third, the order expressly contemplates compliance with the Administrative Procedure Act, which means the provisions needing regulations will move through notice and comment rather than by fiat.
There is also a gap between a directive and its implementation. Section 4(c) obliges CBP to revise its mitigation standards by September 1. It does not guarantee that revised guidance is published and effective that morning. As of this week the existing guidelines at Appendix B to 19 CFR Part 171 remain the published standard, and importers should expect the operative change to arrive as CBP guidance, a Federal Register notice, or both, rather than as a switch flipped at midnight.
What is not in doubt is the direction of travel, or that penalties assessed for conduct occurring now will be adjudicated under whatever regime exists when the case is decided.
How this stacks with September’s other customs dates
September 2026 is unusually dense for anyone importing into the United States, and the three dates interact.
On September 18, CBP begins voiding importer of record numbers where the data on CBP Form 5106 is inaccurate, stale or borrowed. The agency set that out in a general notice published on August 19, 2026 at 91 FR 53627 under document number 2026-16911, and it has said it is reviewing existing records comprehensively rather than only new applications. Our earlier report on CBP voiding importer of record numbers from September 18 sets out which registrations sit inside the review population.
On September 22, CBP’s Entry Type 13 electronic process for international mail shipments valued at $2,500 or less begins as a voluntary test, the replacement architecture for a postal channel that used to run on de minimis.
The compounding risk is procedural rather than substantive. A voided IOR number invalidates entries filed under it. Entries that fail create detentions. Detentions now resolve faster toward seizure and disposal, and the penalties attached to them are floored at half the assessment.
Each date is manageable in isolation. The sequence is what turns an administrative error into an inventory loss.
| Date | Measure | Instrument | Who it hits first |
|---|---|---|---|
| September 1, 2026 | Penalty floor, expedited seizure and disposal, foreign export documents | EO 14411, Sections 3(b), 4(c), 5, 6 | Any importer with an open or emerging violation |
| September 18, 2026 | Voiding of inaccurate importer of record numbers | 91 FR 53627, doc. 2026-16911 | Foreign sellers registered through agents and forwarders |
| September 22, 2026 | Entry Type 13 electronic mail entry begins (voluntary test) | CBP test program | Postal-channel shippers and their brokers |
| Around November 30, 2026 | IOR eligibility, bonds, good standing, vetting | EO 14411, Section 2 | Foreign importers of record |
The wider tariff context has not gone quiet
Enforcement is tightening against a backdrop of unusually high and unusually contested duty rates. The effective US tariff rate reached 7.7 percent in 2025, the highest since 1947, and estimates for 2026 sit near 7.2 percent once refunds are excluded.
Those refunds are their own story. Following the Supreme Court’s February 20, 2026 ruling that the International Emergency Economic Powers Act does not authorize tariffs of indefinite scope, CBP has been processing claims at scale. As of August 2026 the agency had accepted roughly $128.68 billion in potential and certified refunds for processing, against more than 75,000 declarations filed and 17.69 million validated entries liquidated without IEEPA duties.
The two threads run in opposite directions and land on the same balance sheet. Duties collected under one authority are flowing back out while the machinery for penalising declaration errors is being tightened. An importer can be receiving a refund cheque on 2025 entries and facing a floored penalty on a 2026 valuation finding in the same quarter, and several large retailers have already booked tariff refunds as discrete items in recent quarterly results.
What importers should do before Tuesday
The window for cheap remediation is the part of this that is genuinely time-sensitive, because the value of a prior disclosure is highest before an assessment exists.
Immediate, this week
Run an internal review of open classification and valuation positions, particularly any known-uncertain HTS classifications and any related-party transfer pricing used as customs value. Where a violation is already known internally, the calculus on prior disclosure has shifted, and the analysis is better done now than after guidance lands.
Confirm that the Form 5106 data behind every IOR number you file under is current, matching and yours. This is the cheapest item on the list and the one with a hard September 18 consequence.
Within 30 days
Ask suppliers for copies of export declarations filed with their own customs authorities on recent shipments, and compare the declared values and classifications against your entry summaries. Any systematic gap is a problem worth finding before CBP does. Sellers still running postal or mail-channel volume should also confirm broker readiness for the Entry Type 13 mail entry process starting September 22, since the two workstreams draw on the same documentation.
Review bond sufficiency. If a continuous bond is at or near its minimum, model the effect of a liquidated damages claim floored rather than mitigated, and check whether a single claim would exhaust it.
Before the 180-day tranche
Foreign importers of record should decide now whether to restructure through a US entity, since the Section 2 provisions on tangible domestic assets, informal entry and continuous bonds are aimed squarely at that model. That restructuring takes longer than the calendar allows if it is started in November.
Brokers and forwarders should document their client due diligence, because the order directs maximum penalties for brokers who fail to conduct it. A file that shows what was checked and when is the defence.
What to watch after September 1
The first signal is textual: whether CBP publishes revised mitigation guidelines amending Appendix B to 19 CFR Part 171, and how it defines the exceptional circumstances exception and the repeat offender lookback. Both are drafting choices that will determine whether the floor is a hard ceiling on relief or a rebuttable default.
The second is behavioural. Watch detention-to-seizure timelines at the major e-commerce gateways, and whether abandonment volumes rise as importers take the cheaper exit on flagged shipments. A visible shift there would confirm the disposal provisions are operating rather than merely enacted.
The third is litigation. The order anticipates challenges by including a severability clause and by noting consideration of less restrictive alternatives and legitimate reliance interests, which is the language of an administration expecting to defend its rulemaking record. The 180-day provisions restricting foreign importers of record are the likelier target than this week’s tranche.
The fourth is legislative. DHS delivered its recommendations for customs enforcement legislation on the 45-day timeline in July. Whether any of that moves in Congress determines how much of this survives beyond the current administration, because guidance can be rewritten by the next one and statute cannot.
Frequently asked questions
What exactly happens on September 1, 2026?
It is the 90-day deadline under Executive Order 14411, signed June 3, 2026. By that date the Secretary of Homeland Security must have revised penalty mitigation standards to impose a minimum floor of not less than 50 percent, taken steps to expedite seizure and disposal of non-compliant imports, required foreign exporter documentation to be provided to CBP, and put transparency reporting in place.
Does this raise tariff rates?
No. Executive Order 14411 changes enforcement, penalties and disposal procedures. It does not impose or modify any duty rate. Tariff changes in 2026 have come through separate instruments including Section 232 proclamations and Section 301 actions.
What does a 50 percent penalty floor mean in practice?
Customs penalties are assessed under 19 U.S.C. 1592 and importers have been able to petition the assessed amount down under the guidelines in 19 CFR Part 171. The order directs CBP to stop reducing penalties below half the assessed figure except in exceptional circumstances, and to remove mitigation altogether for repeat offenders. The assessed amount becomes the number that matters.
Is my prior disclosure still worth filing?
In most cases yes, because prior disclosure limits statutory exposure at the front end rather than through the petition process. What has changed is the fallback: if the disclosure is rejected or the matter proceeds to assessment, the mitigation route that used to reduce the outcome is worth substantially less. Specific decisions should be taken with trade counsel.
What is voluntary abandonment and should I use it?
It is a procedure that lets an importer surrender merchandise to the government rather than pay to store or contest it. The order directs CBP to reduce the regulatory burdens attached to it, which should make it faster. It caps storage costs on goods that cannot be entered, but it is irreversible and does not by itself resolve penalty exposure on the underlying entry.
Does the order stop foreign companies importing into the US?
Not on September 1. The restrictions on foreign importers of record, including the informal entry prohibition, the bar on relying on continuous bonds for formal entries, the CTPAT or CTPAT-validated broker requirement, and minimum tangible domestic asset thresholds, sit in Section 2 with a 180-day deadline falling at the end of November 2026, and they require rulemaking first.
How does this interact with the end of de minimis?
Directly. The suspension of the $800 exemption moved more than a billion annual shipments into formal and informal entry channels, bringing a large population of first-time filers into a system where errors now carry floored penalties and faster disposal. The order’s own rationale singles out foreign importers of low-value articles as an enforcement gap.
What should a small e-commerce seller do first?
Verify that the CBP Form 5106 data behind the importer of record number used on your entries is accurate and genuinely yours, ahead of September 18. Then review classification and declared values on your highest-volume SKUs, and ask suppliers for the export declarations they file in the origin country so you can check them against your entry summaries.
Where can I read the order itself?
The full text is published on the White House website as a presidential action dated June 3, 2026, and in the Federal Register of June 10, 2026 under document number 2026-11595. The official text of Executive Order 14411 sets out each section and its deadline.