Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Consulting

They are U.S. trade-remedy duties. Antidumping duties address foreign goods sold in the United States below fair value, and countervailing duties address foreign goods that benefit from government subsidies. Both require two findings: the Commerce Department determines the dumping margin or subsidy rate, and the International Trade Commission determines that the imports injure a U.S. industry. When both are affirmative, Commerce issues an order and CBP collects the duties. What makes AD/CVD different from ordinary duty is the magnitude and the mechanism: rates can reach into the hundreds of percent, and the United States assesses the final duty retrospectively rather than at entry. CargoTrans helps importers determine whether their goods are covered, apply the correct rate, and manage the exposure across the order's life.

It depends on the scope of the order, which is defined by a written description of the covered merchandise and the country of origin, not by the HTS code alone. Orders list HTS numbers for reference, but the legal scope is the product description, so goods under a listed HTS code may be outside scope, and goods under a different code may be inside it. Determining coverage means comparing your actual product, its materials, dimensions, and characteristics, against the order's language, and confirming the origin country matches. This is easy to get wrong in both directions. We test your goods against active orders, and where the language is genuinely ambiguous, we request a formal scope ruling from Commerce so you have a binding answer rather than an assumption.

A scope ruling is a formal determination by the Commerce Department on whether a specific product falls within the scope of an existing AD/CVD order. You need one when the order's language does not clearly cover or exclude your goods, and the stakes are high enough that you cannot afford to guess, because guessing wrong means either paying duties you did not owe or facing retroactive assessment and penalties for duties you should have deposited. The ruling process involves submitting a detailed product description and legal argument, and Commerce may consider factors like the product's characteristics and the order's history. We prepare and file scope ruling requests, and we also monitor circumvention and covered-merchandise inquiries that can pull products into an order that were not originally clearly covered.

When goods are subject to an AD/CVD order, the importer posts a cash deposit at entry as security against the final duty. The rate depends on who produced and exported the goods: individually investigated producers and exporters have their own rates, some exporters qualify for a separate rate, and everyone else falls under the all-others or, in non-market economy cases, the country-wide rate, which is often the highest. Rates are set in the original investigation and then updated in each administrative review. Applying the wrong rate is a real risk: too high and you tie up cash unnecessarily, too low and you under-deposit into a liability. We identify the correct producer or exporter rate for your goods and track Commerce instructions so the rate you post is current.

The United States is unusual in using a retrospective system: the cash deposit you post at entry is not the final duty. The final duty is determined later, in an administrative review covering a period of entries, and Commerce can set the final assessment rate higher or lower than what you deposited. If the review sets a higher rate, you owe the difference, plus interest, on entries that may have shipped and sold long ago. This is the core AD/CVD risk for importers: your true liability is not fixed at entry and can grow. We model that exposure using current and likely review rates, help you decide whether to participate in a review, and plan for the gap so a rate increase does not arrive as an uncovered bill years after the fact.

An administrative review is the annual Commerce proceeding that sets the final assessment rate for entries made during a period of review, and updates the cash deposit rate going forward. Interested parties, including importers, exporters, producers, and domestic petitioners, can request a review during the anniversary month of the order. If a review is requested for your producer or exporter, Commerce collects data through questionnaires and calculates the final margin, which then governs the final duty on your covered entries. Participating, or choosing not to, has real consequences for your rate and liability. We manage the strategic decisions around reviews: whether to request one, how to respond to questionnaires, and how to track the outcome through to the liquidation of your entries at the final rate.

EAPA, the Enforce and Protect Act, gives CBP a formal process to investigate allegations that an importer evaded AD/CVD duties, for example by transshipping goods through a third country to disguise their origin, misdescribing the merchandise, or undervaluing entries. Allegations are often filed by competitors or domestic producers. During an investigation CBP can impose interim measures, including suspending liquidation and requiring cash deposits, before it even reaches a final determination. An adverse finding can mean retroactive duties, continued suspension, and referral for penalties. EAPA cases move on CBP's timeline and rely heavily on documentation. We defend importers named in allegations, prepare submissions and factual records, substantiate origin and supplier relationships, and support the administrative appeal, and we build that record before an allegation lands where the risk is foreseeable.

Origin is central, because AD/CVD orders apply to specific merchandise from specific countries. If your goods are the covered product and originate in the order's country, they are subject to the duties. This makes origin both an opportunity and a trap. Genuine manufacturing in a non-covered country can lawfully place goods outside an order, but a paper transshipment that merely routes covered goods through a third country without transforming them is evasion, which CBP pursues under EAPA with severe consequences. The determination turns on substantial transformation, the same standard used for non-preferential origin generally. We analyze whether your supply chain actually places the goods outside an order or merely appears to, and document the origin so it withstands an evasion inquiry rather than inviting one.

Yes, and this surprises many importers. Because the assessment system is retrospective, an administrative review can raise the final rate above your cash deposit, leaving you owing the difference plus interest on entries already sold through. Separately, if goods were in scope but entered without AD/CVD, whether through a scope error or an evasion finding, you can face retroactive duties on those entries. The importer of record carries this liability, and AD/CVD rates are high enough that an uncovered assessment can be financially serious. We model this exposure so you see the potential gap before it materializes, advise on bonding and risk allocation, and, most importantly, get scope and rate right at entry so the retrospective surprise is minimized in the first place.

Bonds secure CBP against duties an importer might owe, and AD/CVD complicates the picture because the final liability is not known at entry. Your continuous customs bond has to be sized against your total duty and fee exposure, and heavy AD/CVD activity can require a larger bond or draw CBP scrutiny of bond sufficiency, because the retrospective gap between deposits and final assessment is a risk the surety and CBP both watch. In some situations single-entry bonds or additional security come into play. We model your retrospective liability exposure, help size continuous or single-entry bonds appropriately, and address how importer-of-record risk is allocated in your contracts, so a review-driven assessment is covered rather than leaving you or your surety exposed to an uncovered bill.

General tariff and duty consulting focuses on lawfully reducing ordinary customs duty, through correct classification, valuation strategies like first sale, origin planning for preferences, and programs like foreign trade zones and drawback. AD/CVD consulting addresses a different animal: trade-remedy duties that are far larger, governed by Commerce and the ITC rather than ordinary tariff schedules, assessed retrospectively, and enforced through scope proceedings and EAPA evasion cases. The skills overlap in origin and classification, but AD/CVD requires understanding order scope, cash deposit and separate rates, administrative reviews, and evasion defense. We provide both, and coordinate them, because a single shipment can carry ordinary duty, a Section 301 surcharge, and AD/CVD at once, and each has to be handled under its own rules.

It begins with a free 30-minute scope and exposure review. Share your products, their origins, and your suppliers, and we will test them against active AD/CVD orders, flag what is in scope or at risk, and identify the correct cash deposit rate, with no obligation. From there we scope the work: scope ruling requests where coverage is unclear, rate and retrospective liability modeling, administrative review participation, EAPA defense, and the origin and supplier documentation that protects you. Because our brokers file entries daily, the scope and rate we determine are applied on your actual entries and documented. Most importers come to us because a competitor filed an EAPA allegation, a supplier's country drew a new order, or a liquidation revealed AD/CVD exposure they never priced in.