Importers, exporters, and consignees may request confidential manifest treatment from US Customs in order to prevent their vessel manifest data from being made public through various data services. In the past, these requests could be submitted via US mail or email, and would take 60 to 90 days to be processed.
On May 22nd, Customs will launch an online application form for the submission of confidentiality requests which will reduce the processing time to as little as 24 hours. Companies will be able to directly input all applicable name variations to ensure the name provided matches the name entered with the manifest data in ACE. For example, ABC Company, Inc. and ABC Company Inc. (without the comma) would be 2 name variations.
We encourage all companies to protect their manifest data and take advantage of this service from Customs. Once granted, manifest confidentiality must be renewed every two years.
For more information, please visit the manifest confidentiality page on Customs’ website.