Frequently-Asked Questions

When are the reports issued?

There is an approximate two-month lag in between the time the data is collected from U.S. Customs and the time they become available online. For example, November's reports for the previous year will become available in mid-January of the current year.

Why are some addresses incomplete/contain XXX's, ZZZ's and YYY's?

Information that is obscured by XXX's, ZZZ's and YYY's has been struck from the public record, per the request of the parties involved. Due to privacy laws, there is no way to circumvent this.

What is ORDER, and why does it sometimes show up in the consignee or notify party?

Order stands for "by order of the shipper" on a bill of lading. Usually, entries for "order" are handled by a customs broker or another third party, hiding the the information for the original importer.

The value of goods I'm seeing doesn't look correct

Trade laws affect the ability to show the actual value of a shipment. Because of this, the value you see in our reports is a calculated, estimated value based on the commodity, port of discharge, port of entry and time of the year.

I Know X LBS. of this product were imported by X in a given month, but the total doesn't seem correct

Sometimes products on a bill of lading don't match the commodity description used to generate our reports, or the description on the bill of lading is obtuse or vague. The trade intelligence reports shouldn't be used to calculate true statistical data -- there are additional sources for this, including U.S. Bureau of the Census.