What counts in customs value: assists, royalties, commissions, related-party prices and the exchange date

What is transaction value, and why is the invoice only the start?

US customs value is appraised in a fixed order (19 CFR 152.101(b)): transaction value first, then the transaction value of identical goods, of similar goods, deductive value and computed value. Almost every commercial entry uses the first. Transaction value is "the price actually paid or payable for the merchandise when sold for exportation to the United States", plus five additions (19 U.S.C. 1401a(b)(1)):

Each addition is made only "to the extent" it is not already in the price and "is based on sufficient information". If the information is missing, transaction value is treated as one that cannot be determined (19 CFR 152.103(b)(2)) and appraisement moves down the order.

"Price actually paid or payable" is the total payment, direct or indirect, made or to be made by the buyer to or for the benefit of the seller, exclusive of international transport, insurance and related charges (19 CFR 152.102(f)). Three consequences follow. A debt the buyer pays off for the seller is part of the price (19 CFR 152.103(a)(2)). A rebate agreed after importation is ignored (152.103(a)(4)). And charges separately identified for construction, assembly, maintenance or technical assistance after importation, for transport after importation, and for US duties and taxes are excluded (152.103(i)).

The entry summary declaration on the 7501 commits the importer to all of this: that the prices are true, that rebates, drawbacks, commissions and royalties are disclosed, and that goods or services furnished to the seller are reported. The field-by-field guide covers the box.

Why does every missed dollar cost the whole stack?

The entered value in column 36A is the base for the general rate in column 37A and for every Chapter 99 heading reported with the line. On a product of Vietnam entered on September 15, 2026, a plastic housing of subheading 3926.90.99 carries a general rate of 5.3 percent and, since July 24, 2026, the Section 301 forced-labor duty of 12.5 percent under heading 9903.05.84 (91 FR 47318), which U.S. note 52(a) to Chapter 99 applies on top of the general rate. The merchandise processing fee under 19 CFR 24.23 is 0.3464 percent of the same value up to the fiscal-year maximum. A dollar left out of the entered value therefore understates duty by 17.8 cents, not 5.3 cents, and a dollar wrongly left in overstates it by the same.

The worked lines below all use that product and date: 20,000 housings at $4.00 each, invoiced at $80,000, with the stack of 17.8 percent and the fee at 0.3464 percent. Illustrative figures. The stack itself, and when the broker reports the wrong layers, is in why your entry shows the wrong duty stack. To price any line on its entry date, use the duty calculator.

Is a mold the buyer paid for part of the value?

The buyer bought an injection mold from an unrelated toolmaker for $60,000 and shipped it to the Vietnamese producer at a cost of $2,000. The producer's price of $4.00 does not include the mold. Under 19 CFR 152.102(a)(1)(ii) the mold is an assist; under 152.103(d)(2) its value is the acquisition cost plus transport to the place of production, $62,000. Under 152.103(e) the importer chooses a reasonable apportionment consistent with generally accepted accounting principles: over the first shipment, over the units produced up to the first shipment, or over the entire anticipated production. The contract is for 200,000 units, so $0.31 per unit.

Three things in the same regulation cut the other way. Engineering or design work done in the United States is not an assist (152.103(d), example 1). A mold the buyer had used before is valued at its original cost adjusted downward for that use (152.103(d)(2)). And if the importer declared the whole $62,000 on the first shipment, nothing more is added on the next nine; an audit that finds the assist declared twice has found an overpayment.

When is a royalty a condition of the sale?

The buyer pays a licensor 6 percent of US net sales for the right to use a patented process in the housings. 19 CFR 152.103(f) starts from two presumptions: royalties for patents covering the manufacturing process are generally dutiable; royalties paid to third parties for US use of trademarks and copyrights are generally selling expenses of the buyer and not dutiable. The decision in each case depends on whether the buyer was required to pay as a condition of the sale for export, and to whom and under what circumstances the fee was paid.

If the producer will not sell unless the royalty is paid, or the licensor and producer are the same group, the royalty is a condition of sale. With a US resale price of $7.00 per unit, the royalty is $0.42 per unit, $8,400 on the shipment, and the addition is made where the amount can be readily quantified against the imported goods (152.103(b)(3)): duty rises by $1,495.20 and the fee by $29.10. If instead the fee is paid to an unrelated licensor for a US trademark and the buyer could have bought the goods without it, 152.103(f) and its example leave it out. Nothing on the commercial invoice settles which case applies; the license and supply agreements do. The proceeds clause in 1401a(b)(1)(E) catches a royalty that is routed to the seller under another name.

Do packing, commissions and resale proceeds count?

Packing. The buyer pays a third party $1,500 for export cartons and pallets the producer uses. Packing costs incurred by the buyer are an addition (152.103(b)(1)(i)); instruments of international traffic are not packing (152.102(e)). Duty rises by $267 and the fee by $5.20.

Commissions. The buyer pays a 3 percent commission, $2,400. If the agent acts for the seller it is a selling commission and is added (152.103(b)(1)(ii)); if the agent is the buyer's own purchasing agent, the statute lists no addition. The agency agreement and who controls the agent decide which it is. Added, it costs $427.20 in duty and $8.31 in fee; a buying commission wrongly added is the same amount overpaid.

Proceeds. The contract gives the producer $0.25 per unit on each US sale. That is a proceed of resale accruing to the seller and is added where the resale amount can be determined in a reasonable time; the regulation's own example makes a $1 initial price plus $1 on resale a $2 transaction value (152.103(g)). Dividends and payments that do not relate directly to the goods are not added.

When is a related-party price accepted?

The producer is a subsidiary of the buyer. 19 CFR 152.103(l)(1) says CBP will not disregard transaction value solely because buyer and seller are related; the value is acceptable if the circumstances of sale show the relationship did not influence the price, or if the price closely approximates one of the test values in 152.103(j)(2): the transaction value of identical or similar goods sold to unrelated buyers in the United States, or the deductive or computed value of identical or similar goods, for goods exported at or about the same time.

The circumstances-of-sale route is met where the parties deal as if unrelated, where the price follows the industry's normal pricing or the seller's prices to unrelated buyers, or where the price recovers all costs plus a profit equal to the firm's overall profit on goods of the same class over a representative period (152.103(l)(1), interpretative notes 2 and 3). The test-value route has no fixed tolerance: CBP looks at the goods and industry, the season, whether the difference is commercially significant and whether it comes from internal transport costs (152.103(l)(2)).

If the subsidiary sells the same housing to an unrelated US distributor at $4.40 and the group has no cost-plus support for $4.00, the $4.00 price is at risk. Rejected, the line is appraised by the next method; if that lands at $4.40, the entered value is $88,000 and the duty $15,664, a difference of $1,424 plus fee. Under 152.103(m), CBP must tell the importer its grounds for rejecting a declared value that increases duty and allow 20 days to respond. ## What about a year-end transfer-pricing adjustment?

A price cut agreed after importation is normally disregarded (19 CFR 152.103(a)(4)), so a year-end true-up does not reach the entered value by default. CBP's ruling HQ W548314 of May 16, 2012 sets out when it does: post-importation adjustments, upward and downward, are taken into account where the transfer price comes from an objective formula fixed before importation, and CBP treats a transfer-pricing policy as such a formula only if all five of these hold:

1. A written intercompany transfer-pricing policy was in place before importation and was prepared taking section 482 of the Internal Revenue Code into account.
2. The US taxpayer uses the policy, and reports its adjustments, in filing its income tax return.
3. The policy says how the transfer price and any adjustment are determined for every product it covers whose value is to be adjusted.
4. The company keeps, and provides, accounting details from its books or financial statements that support the adjustments claimed.
5. No other condition exists that may affect CBP's acceptance of the transfer price.

The ruling calls Reconciliation the most efficient way to report the adjustments, since the value is flagged at entry and finalized later, but does not make it mandatory. The adjustment does not replace the related-party test above: the price still has to pass the circumstances-of-sale or test-value route. Whether a given policy meets the five conditions is a question for counsel before the first flagged entry, not after the year closes.

Which exchange rate converts a foreign-currency price?

The invoice is EUR 70,000, issued on August 28, 2026. The goods left the country of exportation on September 3, 2026, and the entry was filed on September 15. The ERP posted the invoice at its August rate. 19 CFR 159.32 and 152.1(c) fix the conversion on the date of exportation: the day the goods finally leave the country of exportation for the United States, and where no positive evidence exists CBP estimates it from bills of lading and invoices. The rate is the certified quarterly rate for that quarter (159.34), replaced by the certified daily rate for September 3 only if that daily rate varies by 5 percent or more from the quarterly rate (159.35, 31 U.S.C. 5151).

If the quarterly rate is 1.08 dollars per euro and the ERP used 1.11, the entered value is $75,600 rather than $77,700, and the duty $13,456.80 rather than $13,830.60. Illustrative rates. The direction depends on the currency and the quarter; what is constant is that the invoice date, the payment date and the ERP rate are all wrong, and that the export date is a document fact (the bill of lading), not an accounting choice.

Which lines in your own data should you check?

The additions do not appear on the commercial invoice, so an entry export cannot show them. It can show where to look:

1. Column 36C is "Y": related-party lines. Hold the circumstances-of-sale or test-value support for each product and check whether the price changed after an intercompany true-up.
2. Products with buyer-owned tooling, components or foreign design in the bill of materials: assists. Keep an assist register with acquisition cost, transport, apportionment method and the entries it has been declared on, so it is neither omitted nor declared twice.
3. Products under a license agreement: royalties and proceeds. Match each agreement to the products it covers and record the condition-of-sale analysis.
4. Agent commissions in accounts payable: selling or buying, by agreement.
5. Foreign-currency invoices: compare the entered value to the invoice converted at the export-date rate; a line that matches the ERP rate instead is wrong by the spread.
6. Freight-inclusive invoices: column 36B should carry the international freight and insurance; a line where it is zero on a CIF invoice has freight in the value.

Both directions are findings. An addition left out is an underpayment, corrected before liquidation by a post-summary correction and after it by a prior disclosure; a buying commission, US design cost or international freight left in is an overpayment, recovered by a post-summary correction or a protest. The routes are in how to recover overpaid import duty, the finance side of the same numbers in duty accrual vs what you actually paid, and the full line-by-line check starts from the post-entry audit pillar.

TariffSense reads the entry lines and the invoices behind them and flags entered values that do not follow from the invoice, the relationship flag or the currency and date on the documents. The valuation analysis behind an assist or a royalty, and any filing, stay with your compliance team and a licensed broker or counsel.