US Customs and Border Protection has ruled on an online platform that offered importers an AI classification tool. The company behind it held no customs broker's license. The ruling is HQ H350722, dated January 16, 2026. CBP's Office of Trade, Regulations and Rulings wrote it as internal advice, at the request of CBP's Automotive and Aerospace Center of Excellence and Expertise. CBP withheld the company's name.
Its holding says the company is conducting customs business without a license when its AI tool derives subheadings beyond the six-digit level for goods that will be entered. The ruling also says a tool is not a "person" under the broker regulations. Parts of the ruling follow, not the whole.
One Platform, Four Services
The ruling describes a foreign company that runs an online platform for importers, for a fee. It names three principal services. The platform connects importers to brokers who make entry for them. It pulls entry data out of shipping documents with an optical character recognition, or OCR, tool. And it suggests classifications with an AI tool. The company also certified and submitted a CBP form for several new importers, though it did not specifically market that service online.
The classifications are subheadings of the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States. To use the AI tool, an importer enters facts about an article, such as its product name, its material and its end use. The tool answers with "tiered" suggestions. It may prompt the importer to pick a subchapter, then a heading, then a subheading, until potentially a single suggestion remains.
A disclaimer goes with each result. It calls the system a beta phased system that operates on AI. It says the results are merely an estimation, meant as a guideline. And it says the final classification, as Customs determines it at its sole discretion, may differ.
Where Customs Business Begins
Under federal law, no person may conduct customs business on behalf of another without a valid customs broker's license. The definition covers activities involving transactions with CBP about the classification of goods, among other things. It also includes preparing documents intended to be filed with CBP in furtherance of those activities, whether or not the preparer signs or files them. The ruling notes that the Court of International Trade has called the definition "very broad."
For classification, CBP looks for a link to a prospective entry. The number of digits is one sign of it, and the context is another. If the AI tool only derives subheadings to the six-digit level, the ruling says, no customs business is being conducted. Beyond the six-digit level, a broker's license is generally required if that information will or may eventually be used for an entry. Filing an entry requires classifying goods to the ten-digit level.
As a general rule, an earlier ruling said, unlicensed people may instruct others on customs law and explain the use of the tariff schedules. They may not advise a client how to classify goods that are going to be entered.
Disclaimers have been tested before. In a 2022 ruling, a supplier sought to classify the goods its customers bought and imported, and would include a disclaimer. CBP held that the disclaimer did not absolve the company from impermissibly conducting customs business. In a 2017 ruling, a general classification database was allowed. Clients could use it whether or not they ever imported a product. Its disclaimer had to be "meaningfully implemented," and it could not direct clients or brokers on how to prepare an entry. That ruling called the question a "fine line."
Where the AI Tool Falls
Importers can use the AI tool whether or not they hire a broker through the platform. To the extent it gives general information cut off from any actual or intended import, the ruling finds it akin to the narrowly permissible database of 2017. That holds so long as the disclaimer is meaningfully implemented.
It is different for customers who have hired a broker through the platform. If the tool gives them subheadings beyond the six-digit level, CBP finds it is directing customers and brokers on how to prepare the entry.
In its own summary, the ruling says the tool is permissible so long as it operates separately from the portal that connects importers to brokers. That way it does not direct either party on the classification that should appear on an entry. And the disclaimer must be meaningfully implemented.
The disclaimer was not enough on its own. The ruling looked at where the tool's answer could end up.
A Tool Is Not a Person
The ruling adds one more point for any automated tool that is, or may be, used to make entry. A licensed individual broker is a precondition to conducting customs business for others. A partnership, an association or a corporation needs at least one member or officer who is a licensed broker.
That precondition extends to automated tools, the ruling says. If a tool is used to conduct customs business, an individual broker or other licensed person must have a role in specifying what information, such as value or classification, is automatically generated by the tool and ultimately appears on an entry. A tool is not a "person" as the broker regulations define the word. The actual decision on classification, or on any other information needed to make entry, must be made by a licensed customs broker.
For a platform that puts an AI tool between an importer and an entry, the ruling leaves a question. Which licensed broker decided what went on it?
Sources
- U.S. Customs and Border Protection (Office of Trade, Regulations and Rulings). HQ H350722: Online platform; conducting customs business without a license. 16 January 2026. regulator