CBP Bond: Types, Amount, and How to Obtain One

A CBP bond is a financial guarantee that lets a commercial importer clear goods through U.S. Customs and Border Protection before duties and compliance issues are fully settled. It’s a three-party contract: you (the importer, called the principal), a surety company that stands behind you financially, and CBP. If you don’t pay duties, break an import rule, or fail to return goods when CBP demands them, CBP collects from the surety instead of chasing you directly. You need one for any commercial shipment worth more than $2,500, and for any shipment regulated by another federal agency regardless of value.¹

When You Need a Bond

The $2,500 threshold is the bright line. Commercial shipments valued above that amount cannot be released by CBP until a bond is on file.² Value isn’t the only trigger. Shipments regulated by other federal agencies also require a bond even when the goods are worth less. Vehicles reviewed by the EPA or Department of Transportation, food subject to FDA oversight, firearms, and similar regulated categories all need bond coverage regardless of the dollar amount.¹

Shipments under $2,500 that aren’t subject to another agency’s rules can enter informally, without a bond. Some goods can never enter informally though, including merchandise subject to quotas and goods carrying anti-dumping or countervailing duties.³

The point of the bond is timing. CBP’s final liquidation, where the exact duties owed get pinned down, can take months. The bond acts as a financial backstop so you can take possession of your goods in the meantime.

Single Transaction or Continuous

Two forms exist. A Single Transaction Bond (STB) covers one specific entry. A Continuous Bond (CB) covers all of your import transactions at every U.S. port for a full year and automatically renews each year when the premium is paid.⁴

An STB fits a one-off shipment: a single container, a piece of equipment, something you don’t expect to repeat soon. Buy the bond, cover the entry, done. If you plan to import more than a handful of times a year, the cost of buying an STB for each shipment adds up fast, and a continuous bond is almost always the better economics.

Continuous bonds stay active until you or the surety terminates them. Most active importers run on one.

Activity Codes

CBP also classifies bonds by activity code. Activity Code 1, the basic importation and entry bond, is what most commercial importers need. Others exist for bonded warehouses, international carriers, foreign trade zone operators, and Importer Security Filing obligations on ocean shipments, among other specialized roles.⁵ If you’re a straightforward importer bringing goods into commerce, Activity Code 1 is your bond.

How the Bond Amount Is Set

The bond amount, called the penal sum or limit of liability, is the ceiling of what the surety would owe CBP if you default. It is not what you pay for the bond. The math depends on which type you buy.

Single Transaction Bond

A standard STB is set at the total entered value of the goods plus all applicable duties, taxes, and fees.⁶ Import $30,000 of goods with $3,000 in estimated duties and the STB is at least $33,000.

High-risk goods change the math. Shipments subject to oversight by the FDA, EPA, Consumer Product Safety Commission, or FCC, or subject to quota or visa requirements, jump to three times the total entered value.⁶ That multiplier gives CBP enough leverage to compel redelivery if the goods turn out to be noncompliant. An importer bringing in $50,000 of FDA-regulated food could face an STB of $150,000.

Temporary Importation under Bond (TIB) entries, for goods brought in temporarily and meant to be re-exported, use a different formula: double the estimated duties and fees that would apply if the goods were permanently imported. Commercial samples and professional equipment get a lower requirement of 110% of estimated duties.⁷

Continuous Bond

A continuous bond is sized at 10% of the total duties, taxes, and fees you paid over the previous 12 months, with a $50,000 floor.⁶ If 10% of your annual duties comes to $80,000, that’s your bond. If it comes to $30,000, you still have to carry the $50,000 minimum. New importers with no history usually start at the floor.

When little or no duty is involved and CBP considers the $50,000 minimum insufficient for other reasons, the bond can be set at one-half of 1% of the total value of your annual imports instead.⁶ That covers importers moving high volumes of duty-free goods that still carry real compliance risk.

What the Bond Guarantees

The bond isn’t only about paying duties. Under 19 CFR 113.62, an Activity Code 1 bond covers several separate obligations, and a failure on any one can trigger a claim.⁸

Paying duties, taxes, and charges, including both estimated amounts deposited at release and any additional amounts CBP determines after liquidation.
Completing entry documentation when goods are released before the paperwork is finished.
Producing required documents on CBP’s timeline when goods are released before supporting evidence is in hand.
Redelivering merchandise on demand when CBP later determines conditionally released goods don’t meet import requirements.
Rectifying noncompliance by correcting anything about the goods that violates the law.

The redelivery obligation is the one that catches importers by surprise. If the FDA tests a food shipment and rejects it, or CBP discovers a labeling violation after release, you have to bring the goods back. The bond gives CBP financial teeth to enforce that.

How to Obtain a Bond

You cannot buy a bond directly from CBP. You go through a surety company authorized by the U.S. Treasury Department, or work with a licensed customs broker acting as the surety’s agent.² Most importers go through a broker because the broker handles the bond alongside the entry filings and classification work.

The surety underwrites you on your financial profile, estimated import volume, prior compliance history, and what you import. Expect to hand over financial statements, your CBP importer number, and details about your expected activity. The surety uses that to decide whether to issue and what to charge.

The premium is a fraction of the bond amount. For a standard $50,000 continuous bond, importers with clean records typically pay a few hundred dollars per year. Larger bonds, thin import history, or prior compliance issues raise the premium. STB premiums run higher relative to the bond amount because the surety can’t spread risk across a year of transactions.

The bond itself is executed on CBP Form 301, the official customs bond document.⁹ Once the surety signs, it’s filed electronically with CBP’s Revenue Division and becomes active after CBP reviews and approves it.

After the Bond Is in Place

Sufficiency Reviews

Getting the bond isn’t the end of it. CBP periodically reviews every active continuous bond to check whether the penal sum still covers your activity. If your duty payments have grown or compliance problems have surfaced, CBP can find the bond insufficient.¹⁰

When that happens, CBP issues an insufficiency notice to you and your surety. You have 15 days to fix it, which usually means obtaining a new bond at a higher penal sum.¹⁰ During the window, CBP can require cash deposits or single transaction bonds on each shipment as additional security. If you don’t resolve the insufficiency, CBP will stop accepting new entries against the bond. Importers hit by rapid growth or a sudden tariff hike are the ones who feel this: last year’s activity sized the bond, this year’s duties have doubled, and shipments stack up at the port while a larger bond is arranged.

Liquidated Damages

Violate a bond condition and CBP doesn’t assess a vague penalty. It issues a claim for liquidated damages, a specific dollar amount preset by regulation and charged against your bond. For the Importer Security Filing (ISF) requirement on ocean shipments, which must be filed at least 24 hours before the vessel departs, the standard assessment is $5,000 per violation, whether the filing was late, inaccurate, missing, or not withdrawn when required. In the most serious cases CBP can assess up to $10,000 per shipment.¹¹

Other common triggers include failing to redeliver merchandise on demand, failing to export TIB goods within the allowed time, and failing to pay additional duties after liquidation. Each claim eats into your bond’s capacity and can push you into insufficiency. Importers can petition CBP for mitigation on a claim, though CBP won’t grant relief if law enforcement goals were compromised by the violation.¹¹

Terminating the Bond

Stop importing or want to switch sureties? You can terminate a continuous bond by written request to CBP’s Revenue Division. Termination takes effect on the date you request, as long as that date is at least 10 business days after CBP receives the request. Skip the date and it kicks in on the 10th business day automatically. A surety can also terminate its obligation on your bond, with or without your agreement, on at least 30 days’ notice to you and CBP. If the surety drops you, you need a replacement before you can import again.¹²

Termination only cuts off future transactions. Liability for anything that happened while the bond was active survives it.¹² If CBP liquidates an entry six months after the bond ends and finds additional duties owed on a shipment that cleared while it was in force, both you and the surety are still on the hook. CBP has up to 314 days after entry to liquidate, and extensions can push that further, so this tail can run for years.

1
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. When Is a Customs Bond Required
2
eCFR. 19 CFR 142.4 – Bond Requirements
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Filing an Informal Entry for Goods That Are Less Than $2500 in Value
4
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Bonds – Types of Bonds
5
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Summary of Changes – A Guide for the Public: How CBP Sets Bond Amounts
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Monetary Guidelines for Setting Bond Amounts
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eCFR. 19 CFR Part 10 Subpart A – Temporary Importations Under Bond
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eCFR. 19 CFR 113.62 – Basic Importation and Entry Bond Conditions
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection. CBP Form 301 – Customs Bond
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eCFR. 19 CFR Part 113 – CBP Bonds
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection. CBP Dec. 09-26 – Guidelines for the Assessment and Cancellation of Claims for Liquidated Damages
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eCFR. 19 CFR 113.27 – Effective Dates of Termination of Bond