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ACE Cargo Release: the data filed in place of Form 3461

ACE Cargo Release is how an import is released in the United States: an entry summary filer transmits the required data elements through the Automated Commercial Environment in lieu of filing CBP Form 3461, Entry/Immediate Delivery. CBP's notice of 1 October 2026 puts it at 29,832,210 transmissions a year against 12,995 responses on the form. It releases the cargo; it does not assess duty.

ACE Cargo Release: A programme for ACE entry summary filers in which the importer or broker transmits the required cargo release data electronically in lieu of filing CBP Form 3461, Entry/Immediate Delivery, to secure release of imported merchandise from CBP custody.

The cargo release elements, by who actually holds the fact Ten can be settled before the goods move. Three exist only once the cargo is booked and loaded.

Two things release a container in the United States, and neither of them is the filing most people name first. The duty declaration, the entry summary on CBP Form 7501, comes later. What gets the goods out of CBP custody is the entry, and the entry is now a data transmission.

What it replaced

CBP describes the programme in its own words:

Ace Cargo Release is a program for ACE entry summary filers in which importers or brokers may file ACE Cargo Release data in lieu of filing the CBP Form 3461.

“In lieu of” has turned out to mean “instead of, almost always”. The agency’s burden figures for 2026 put ACE Cargo Release at 29,832,210 responses a year and Form 3461, paper and electronic together, at 12,995. The form is still provided for by regulation, its instructions were updated this year, and it remains the document that authorises the carrier to release the goods. It is no longer how the work is done.

The twelve elements, and the thirteen labels

The required set, as the notice prints it, is importer of record; buyer name and address; buyer employer identification number; seller name and address; manufacturer or supplier name and address; the Harmonized Tariff Schedule 10-digit number; country of origin; bill of lading; house air waybill number; bill of lading issuer code; entry number; entry type; and estimated shipment value.

CBP calls that twelve required elements. There are thirteen labels, and the notice does not say which two it counts as one. The same paragraph promises four optional elements and names three. Neither discrepancy changes what a desk has to produce, which is all of them.

Ten of them are knowable before the goods move

Sorted by who holds the fact, the list falls into three groups. Your own records hold the importer of record and the buyer’s details; your filer supplies the entry number and type. The purchase contract should settle the seller, the manufacturer, the classification and the declared origin, and “should” is doing real work in that sentence, because the manufacturer’s registered name and address on a trading purchase is routinely not the seller’s, and getting it is a question somebody has to ask.

Then there are three that no preparation can produce: the bill of lading, its issuer code, and the house air waybill number. They do not exist until the cargo has been booked and loaded. An import entry can therefore be made ready early and never finished early, and the practical consequence is that the ten settled fields had better be settled, because the three late ones arrive on the carrier’s schedule and not on yours.

It releases; it does not declare

The deadline for the other filing is in 19 CFR § 142.12(b):

the entry summary documentation shall be filed, with estimated duties attached, within 10 working days after the time of entry

So one shipment carries two filings with two deadlines, and the container’s free time is running against the first. A desk that treats the 7501 as the deadline has mistaken the duty clock for the storage clock.

The element list is also where the procedure gets chosen, because “entry type” is one of the thirteen labels on it. The same transmission that releases the box records whether this was a formal clearance or a type 11 clearance, and that one field then sets the filing deadline, the bond and how long an unentered shipment stays recoverable. What CBP’s element list gives, read the right way round, is a specification for the party masters and the purchase contract. The document pack those elements come out of is the thing import document checking software reads against the contract before the late fields land.

Questions traders ask

What is CBP Form 3461?

The Entry/Immediate Delivery form: the filing that secures release of imported merchandise from CBP custody, as distinct from the entry summary that assesses the duty. It is provided for by 19 CFR 142.3, 142.16, 141.22 and 141.24, and CBP describes it as "also a delivery authorization document" given to the importing carrier to authorise release. In practice the form has been replaced by data: CBP's figures for 2026 are 29,832,210 ACE Cargo Release transmissions against 12,995 responses on Form 3461, paper and electronic combined.

What are the ACE Cargo Release required data elements?

CBP's notice of 1 October 2026 calls them twelve and prints thirteen labels: importer of record; buyer name and address; buyer employer identification number (consignee number); seller name and address; manufacturer/supplier name and address; the Harmonized Tariff Schedule 10-digit number; country of origin; bill of lading; house air waybill number; bill of lading issuer code; entry number; entry type; and estimated shipment value. Four optional elements are mentioned and three named — the container stuffing location, the consolidator, and the ship-to party.

What is the difference between cargo release and the entry summary?

The job and the deadline. Cargo release gets the goods out of CBP custody; the entry summary, normally CBP Form 7501, is what lets CBP assess duty and collect statistics. Unless the entry summary is filed at the time of entry, 19 CFR 142.12(b) gives 10 working days after the time of entry to file it with estimated duties attached. So one shipment carries two filings, and the container's free time runs against the first one.

What is a bill of lading issuer code?

The code identifying who issued the bill of lading named in the filing, and it is a required cargo release element in its own right, separate from the bill of lading number. It is one of three elements that cannot exist before the cargo is booked and loaded — the others being the bill of lading itself and the house air waybill number — which is why an import entry can be made ready early but never finished early.

Does ACE Cargo Release mean filing earlier?

That is its stated purpose. CBP says the programme "minimizes the redundancy of data submitted by the filer to CBP through receiving carrier data from the carrier" and that this "allows the participants to file earlier in the transportation flow". Filing earlier only helps a desk whose party and goods data is already settled, because the elements that hold a transmission up are usually the supplier-side ones rather than the transport ones.

What is a Global Business Identifier?

An optional identifier a filer may volunteer to identify a supply chain party more precisely than a name and address: a 20-digit Legal Entity Identifier, a 9-digit DUNS number or a 13-digit Global Location Number. CBP's 1 October 2026 notice expands the party types it may be given for from six to eight, adding "Intermediary" and "Source", and allows a filer to submit one identifier rather than all three. Participation and the data are voluntary.

Related terms

Entry Summary — The documentation or data filed with US Customs and Border Protection that enables it to assess duties, collect statistics on imported merchandise and determine whether other legal requirements are met. Normally CBP Form 7501, submitted through ACE within 10 working days of entry.
Bill of Lading — The transport document a carrier issues for goods received, which works at once as a receipt, as evidence of the contract of carriage, and, when made out to order, as the document of title to the cargo.
Commercial invoice — The seller's itemised bill for goods sold for export, and the document an import declaration takes its value, description and origin from. Its required contents are set by the importing country's customs law rather than by the seller.
Packing List — A shipping document listing the physical contents of a consignment package by package: quantities, shipping marks, net and gross weights, dimensions and which goods are in which package or container, without prices.
Customs value — The value of imported goods on which customs duty is assessed. Under the WTO Valuation Agreement the primary basis is the transaction value — the price actually paid or payable for the goods when sold for export — adjusted by the additions listed in Article 8 and by no others.
HS code — A product number from the Harmonized System, the World Customs Organization's international classification. Six digits are common to every member country; national tariffs extend them to eight or ten digits for duty rates and controls.