The importer of record has a legal duty of "reasonable care" in classifying and valuing merchandise. It's a process standard, not a perfection standard: CBP isn't asking you to never be wrong, it's asking whether you took the reasonable steps a prudent importer would take — consulting the tariff schedule, checking rulings, getting expert input where warranted, and keeping a record of it. When a CF-28 (request for information) or CF-29 (notice of action) lands, that record is what you're being asked to produce.
What CBP's Informed Compliance checklist actually asks
CBP's Reasonable Care checklist (from its Informed Compliance publications) poses a series of questions. The classification-relevant ones map cleanly to steps you can document:
| CBP asks… | What satisfies it |
|---|---|
| Did you consult the HTSUS and its provisions? | A written classification to the correct heading and subheading, with the GRI path. |
| Did you consult CBP rulings on CROSS? | Cited rulings on similar merchandise — adopted and rejected — in your file. |
| Did you consult Informed Compliance publications? | Reference to the relevant ICP for your commodity where one exists. |
| Did you consult a customs expert? | A documented analysis or a broker/attorney opinion on the classification. |
| Do you follow the advice and keep a written record of it? | The retained advisory, kept with the entry for five years. |
The through-line: every question is answerable with a document. "We're pretty sure" is not an answer to any of them. The reasonable-care standard is, in practice, a documentation standard.
The five-year lookback (why this isn't a one-time task)
CBP can reach back five years from the date of entry to review your classifications, and you're required to retain entry records for five years under 19 C.F.R. Part 163. Penalties for negligent misclassification can run to twice the duty loss; for gross negligence or fraud, higher. So the record you keep today is answering a question that might not be asked until 2031 — which is exactly why a dated, sourced analysis beats a memory of what the broker said.
The checklist, in the form we actually deliver it
Every advisory closes with this mapping, checked against the work done. It's the same list, turned into a record you can hand to an auditor:
| Item | Status in the advisory |
|---|---|
| HTSUS provisions and CROSS rulings consulted | [x] — cited throughout the analysis |
| Written GRI classification reasoning | [x] — Section III |
| Duty and trade-remedy exposure documented | [x] — Section IV, in dollars |
| Retain with entry documents for 5 years | [ ] — your action |
| Provide any missing §177.2 facts, re-run | [ ] — your action |
| Below HIGH confidence → binding ruling before high volume | [ ] — your call |
The boxes we can check, we check with a citation. The boxes only you can check — retention, supplying missing facts, deciding on a binding ruling — are left open with the action named, because it would be dishonest to mark them done on your behalf.
What answers a CF-28
A CF-28 asks you to substantiate a classification or value on a specific entry. The strong response is not a longer email — it's the file you already built: the recommended code, the CBP rulings behind it, the candidates you considered and rejected in GRI terms, the duty math, and the date and sources. That's the difference between a scramble and a hand-off. If the alternative is a customs attorney drafting the same substantiation from scratch at $400–600 an hour, the record you kept up front is the cheaper insurance by a wide margin.