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Using your carnet in the United States

Your carnet only protects you if CBP sees it at the right moments. On any US trip there are two customs touchpoints: one stamp from a CBP officer when the goods arrive in the country, one when they leave. Both are entirely your job to chase. Nobody at a US airport will come looking for your carnet, in either direction.

Entering: find the officer yourself

At your port of first arrival, you (or an authorised representative) present the carnet and the goods to a CBP officer, who validates the white importation counterfoil. The procedure is the same whether the goods travel as cargo or as carry-on baggage. And USCIB, the US carnet association, is blunt about whose problem this is: "Arrive early! It is the Carnet Holder's responsibility to locate a customs inspector to validate the Carnet."

One thing to check before you walk away from the desk: the officer may write a final date for re-exportation on the importation counterfoil, and that date can be shorter than your carnet's validity. If it's there, it's your deadline. If the field is empty, the deadline is the carnet's printed expiration date. Look at the counterfoil while you're still standing in front of the officer, and put whichever date applies in your calendar.

What your goods enter as

The US isn't a party to the Exhibitions and Fairs convention, so there's no "exhibition goods" category here. Goods for a trade fair enter as commercial samples (items to be exhibited) or as professional equipment (items used to set up or operate booths and displays). A mobile-robotics startup demoing an inspection robot at a US trade show is fine; the robot just enters under one of those two headings.

Professional equipment comes with a catch: the carnet must list the natural person visiting the US who will use the equipment. For crew-operated gear, that's the crew supervisor.

Some things can't ride on a carnet into the US at all:

Missed the exit stamp anyway? It's usually fixable. Proof from the next country (an import stamp there, or re-import at home before expiry) generally settles a US claim for a regularization fee. The details, including what counts as proof, are in the US problem playbooks.

Transit through the US

ATA transit through the US exists, but don't picture a casual drive-through with a stamp at each end. It runs as a CBP in-bond movement using the carnet's blue transit vouchers, with the goods moved by bonded carrier: think merchandise landing in Chicago and carried under bond to Canada. If your route crosses the US on the way to somewhere else, plan it with a customs broker rather than improvising at the border. (It's TIR carnets that can't be used in the US at all; that ban doesn't extend to ATA transit.)

Sending the goods as freight

A few extra rules apply when the robot travels without you:

What about the tariffs?

Short version: a compliant temporary admission under a carnet stays duty-free, and that survived the 2025-26 tariff turmoil. The IEEPA "reciprocal" duties ended in February 2026; Section 301 duties remain, but no duty is collected on a properly handled temporary import. Two caveats. Chinese-origin items can raise the security your issuer demands for a US-bound carnet, so ask them before budgeting. And we can't confirm anywhere how the merchandise processing fee is treated for carnet entries, so don't count on an exemption there.

Pre-trip checklist

  1. Carnet in hand, confirmed with your issuer for a US route.
  2. Professional equipment: the person using the gear (or the crew supervisor) is named on the carnet.
  3. Nothing on the list is for sale, giveaway, repair, or shipped by mail.
  4. Arrival port's CBP office located and its hours checked; you know where you'll find the officer.
  5. Re-export date on the importation counterfoil checked at the desk and put in your calendar.
  6. Exit stamp planned at the last airport where you control the goods, before baggage check-in; CBP office called the day before if you fly off-hours.
  7. Ocean freight: ISF filed at least 24 hours before loading. Unaccompanied goods: broker or Box-B representative arranged.

Something already went wrong? The US problem playbooks cover missed stamps and claim letters, and the common mistakes page is worth five minutes before your first trip.

Sources

Every factual claim on this page comes from the sources below, checked on the "last reviewed" date in the footer. Official resources are linked in whatever language they are published in.