CBP Personal Use Exemptions and Import Limits: $800, Alcohol, Tobacco

Returning U.S. residents can bring back up to $800 in foreign-purchased goods without paying duty, and that figure anchors the CBP personal use exemptions that govern what you can carry into the country. The $800 covers souvenirs, clothing, electronics, and duty-free shop purchases, so long as the items are for personal use or gifts. Alcohol, tobacco, currency, food, and medications each carry their own rules on top of the dollar figure, and skipping the declaration on any of it can cost far more than the duty itself.¹

The $800 Exemption and Who Qualifies

To claim the full $800, you have to meet every one of the following conditions:²

You’ve been outside the United States for at least 48 hours. This doesn’t apply when you’re returning from Mexico or the U.S. Virgin Islands.
You haven’t used any part of the $800 exemption in the previous 30 days. Even a $150 claim resets the clock.
The goods are physically with you when you enter. You can’t ship purchases separately and count them toward this exemption, with limited carve-outs for shipments from Guam or the U.S. Virgin Islands.
Every item is listed on your customs declaration. Anything undeclared doesn’t qualify for any exemption at all.

Total fair retail value is what counts, not what you paid at a discount. If an item was a gift to you overseas, its fair retail value still applies.

$1,600 From Insular Possessions

Returning from American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, or the U.S. Virgin Islands doubles your exemption to $1,600.¹ There’s a wrinkle: only $800 of that total can come from goods bought outside those territories. Stop in London on the way back from Guam, and the London purchases are still capped at $800.

$200 If You Miss the Time Requirements

Fall short of the 48-hour or 30-day rules, and you can still bring in $200 worth of goods duty-free.³ This one behaves differently than the $800 version. Go a dollar over $200 in total value and you lose the exemption entirely; the full amount becomes dutiable, not just the excess.

Pooling Exemptions in a Family

Family members living in the same household who travel together can combine their individual exemptions on shared purchases. A couple returning with a single $1,200 item can pool both $800 exemptions to cover it.⁴ Children have the same $800 general merchandise exemption as adults, though they don’t contribute an alcohol or tobacco allowance.

Gifts You Mail Home Are Separate

Gifts mailed from abroad to someone in the United States can arrive duty- and tax-free up to $100 per recipient per day, or $200 from an insular possession.⁵ These gifts don’t touch your $800 exemption because you’re not carrying them. Watch two traps: a single item over $100 makes the whole package dutiable, and alcohol and tobacco can’t be sent this way at all.

Alcohol and Tobacco Caps

Value exemptions don’t cover alcohol and tobacco on their own. Both have separate quantity limits that apply no matter how much room you have left in the dollar allowance.

Alcohol

If you’re 21 or older, you can bring one liter of alcoholic beverages duty-free, whether wine, beer, or spirits.⁶ You can bring in more than a liter, but everything above the first liter is assessed duty plus federal excise tax.⁷

From an insular possession the allowance rises to five liters, with no more than one liter purchased outside the territory and no more than four produced outside it.⁶ Federal limits are only the floor. Your arrival state can impose tighter restrictions on top of the federal rule, so check with that state’s alcohol control board before assuming a liter is all you need to think about.⁸

Tobacco

Returning residents may bring up to 200 cigarettes and 100 cigars as part of the personal exemption from most foreign countries.⁹ Nonresidents get 50 cigars or 200 cigarettes or two kilograms of smoking tobacco, and those are alternatives, not cumulative allowances.¹⁰

Nothing Cuban

Since September 2020, no one subject to U.S. jurisdiction may bring Cuban-origin alcohol or tobacco into the United States as personal baggage, even if bought in a third country. Cuban-origin gifts are permitted only when they contain no alcohol or tobacco.¹¹

What You Owe on Amounts Above the Exemption

Once your goods pass the exemption, CBP applies a flat duty rate to the next $1,000 of value. From most foreign countries that rate is 3% of fair retail value. From an insular possession it’s 1.5%.¹² Goods from Column 2 countries such as Cuba and North Korea, which lack normal trade relations with the United States, are hit with a 4% flat rate.⁹

Above the $1,000 flat-rate window, each item is assessed at its regular tariff based on its Harmonized Tariff Schedule classification. Alcohol beyond one liter also owes federal excise tax on top of duty. For most travelers coming home a few hundred dollars over the exemption, only the 3% flat rate is in play.

Items That Can’t Ride the Exemption at All

Certain goods are prohibited or restricted regardless of how much room is left in your $800.

Food and Agricultural Products

Fresh fruits, vegetables, and most meats are prohibited or heavily restricted. Fresh, dried, and canned meats from most foreign countries are barred, and products containing meat such as bouillon and soup mixes fall under the same rules. Bakery goods, some cheeses, condiments, coffee, and tea are generally admissible.¹³

Declare every agricultural product, even one you think is allowed. Failing to declare agricultural items brings a $300 civil penalty for a first offense and $500 for a second, whether the omission was deliberate or not.¹³

Prescription Medications

Importing drugs the FDA hasn’t approved is generally illegal, even for personal use. The FDA carves out a narrow exception for drugs treating a serious condition where no effective domestic treatment exists, provided the quantity is no more than a three-month supply and you can name a U.S.-licensed physician overseeing your care.¹⁴ Foreign visitors may bring a 90-day supply of their own medications, with additional supply shippable under documentation showing personal use.

Counterfeit and Pirated Goods

Trademark-infringing and pirated items are normally kept out at the border. A narrow personal-use exception lets you bring in one counterfeit or pirated article of each type once every 30 days. Sell it within a year of import and both the item and its value are subject to forfeiture.⁶

Wildlife and Cultural Items

Products made from endangered species are generally banned. Ivory is prohibited unless it’s a documented antique at least 100 years old. Cultural artifacts, especially pre-Columbian architectural pieces and certain indigenous objects, require an export permit from the country of origin.¹³ Pets have their own rules: dogs need a rabies vaccination certificate dated at least 30 days before entry, and non-U.S.-origin pet birds other than those from Canada face a mandatory 30-day quarantine at the owner’s expense.

Currency Isn’t a Personal Use Exemption

Money isn’t goods, and there’s no cap on how much you can carry into or out of the country. What there is, is a reporting duty. Carrying more than $10,000 in currency or monetary instruments across the border, you must report it.¹⁵

“Monetary instruments” reaches beyond cash. Traveler’s checks, bearer-form securities, money orders made out to a fictitious payee or endorsed without restriction, and signed checks with the payee left blank all count. Checks made payable to a specific named person with a restrictive endorsement generally don’t.

For a family or group traveling together, the $10,000 threshold is the combined total, not per person. A couple collectively carrying $12,000 must report it even if neither individually holds $10,000. Skipping the report can lead to seizure of the entire amount and criminal exposure.

Moving to the U.S.: A Separate Exemption

If you’re relocating, used household furnishings including furniture, books, kitchenware, and artwork can enter duty-free under a household effects exemption that’s independent of the $800 allowance. The items must have been used abroad for at least one year, but that year doesn’t have to be continuous or immediately before your move.¹⁶ The goods have to be for your own use, not for resale or someone else’s home.

You’ll file a Customs Form 3299 declaration in support of duty-free entry, and CBP may ask for evidence the items were used abroad for the required period. Timing matters: household effects arriving more than 10 years after your last entry from the country of use are generally denied free status, and effects arriving 25 or more years later are categorically ineligible.¹⁶ Vehicles don’t ride along with household effects; they have their own EPA and safety compliance track and shouldn’t be shipped without prior arrangements.¹⁷

What Happens If You Don’t Declare

Undeclared items are treated as smuggled. CBP will seize any undeclared article in your baggage, and you’ll owe a personal penalty equal to the item’s value.¹⁸ If the undeclared item is a controlled substance, the penalty leaps to $500 or 1,000% of the item’s value, whichever is greater. Even when CBP can’t physically seize the item at the moment of discovery, the penalty claim follows you.¹⁹

The damage doesn’t stop at the fine. A customs violation can knock you out of trusted traveler programs like Global Entry, which excludes anyone found in violation of customs, immigration, or agriculture regulations in any country.²⁰ When you’re not sure, declare it. Officers deal much more gently with travelers who declare too much than with travelers caught concealing something.

How to Declare

Every traveler entering the United States has to give CBP the details of what they’re bringing in. The paper form is CBP Form 6059B, which asks for total value of goods, item descriptions, flight or vessel information, and residency status.²¹ Airlines sometimes hand it out during the flight, and copies sit in arrival terminals.

Mobile Passport Control is a free CBP app that lets U.S. citizens, lawful permanent residents, Canadian B1/B2 visitors, and returning Visa Waiver Program travelers submit the customs declaration on their phone, then use a designated arrivals lane.²² You still have to speak with a CBP officer to complete inspection. Global Entry members use touchscreen kiosks that serve the same function with faster processing.

Whichever route you use, you’ll present your passport and receipt to a CBP officer, who may ask about the nature of your goods and your time abroad. If everything’s within your exemption, you’re through. If not, you’ll head to a cashier window to pay the duty owed.

1
eCFR. 19 CFR 148.33 – Articles Acquired Abroad
2
U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Duty-Free Exemption
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Types of Exemptions
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Family Grouping of Exemptions for Articles Acquired Abroad
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Gifts
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eCFR. 19 CFR Part 148 – Personal Declarations and Exemptions
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eCFR. 19 CFR 148.26 – Collection of Internal Revenue Taxes
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Bringing Alcohol Into the United States
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Customs Duty Information
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eCFR. 19 CFR 148.43 – Tobacco Products and Alcoholic Beverages
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U.S. Department of the Treasury. Frequently Asked Questions
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eCFR. 19 CFR 148.102 – Flat Rate of Duty
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Prohibited and Restricted Items
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U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Personal Importation
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Money and Other Monetary Instruments
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eCFR. 19 CFR 148.52 – Household Effects
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Environmental Protection Agency. Learn About Importing Vehicles and Engines
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Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 19 USC 1497 – Penalties for Failure to Declare
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eCFR. 19 CFR 148.18 – Failure to Declare
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Global Entry Frequently Asked Questions
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection. CBP Traveler Entry Forms
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U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Mobile Passport Control