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Foreign-Trade Zones are considered outside of U.S. commerce for Customs purposes. This enables companies to defer duty payments on merchandise until it is entered into U.S. commerce. If the merchandise is subsequently re-exported from the FTZ, no Customs entry is filed, and no duty paid on the merchandise. The U.S. Foreign-Trade Zones program offers substantial advantages to U.S.-based manufacturers and distributors, many of which are not available under free trade zone regimes abroad. In general, merchandise in a zone may be: assembled, exhibited, cleaned, manipulated, manufactured, mixed, processed, relabeled, repackaged, repaired, salvaged, sampled, stored, tested, displayed, and destroyed.

Some of the benefits that are most attractive to companies are relief from inverted tariffs, duty exemption on re-exports, duty elimination on waste, scrap and yield loss, savings on damaged or nonconforming items, weekly entry savings, cash flow (duty deferral) savings, zone-to-zone transfers, government and military sales, and ad valorem tax relief.

Companies often find that the integration of a variety of FTZ benefits and procedures enables them to maximize their savings and minimize their operational costs at each point in their FTZ distribution or manufacturing processes. Click below to learn more about the benefits of Foreign Trade Zones.