AI-powered customs duties classification, assessment, and collection for international mail shipments to the United States

Every year, more than one billion international mail shipments arrive at US ports of entry. Each one requires customs classification, duty assessment, and in many cases, duty collection, a process that today relies heavily on manual inspection and after-arrival data gathering. For US Customs and Border Protection (CBP), this creates a dual challenge: maintaining border security while ensuring efficient processing and accurate revenue collection at unprecedented scale. For postal carriers and their shipping customers, the current process introduces delays, uncertainty, and compliance complexity.

Today, we are announcing that CBP has selected Amazon PreDepart as a trade solutions candidate under the Commercial Solutions Opening Pilot (CSOP) program. As part of this selection, CBP also approved Amazon Customs and Trade (ACT) as a Qualified Party, an entity authorized to collect and remit customs duties on behalf of shippers – for international mail shipments to the United States.

What is Amazon PreDepart?

Amazon PreDepart is an AI-powered service that automates Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) classification, duties assessment, and duties collection for international mail shipments before they depart for the United States. The service enables cross-border postal carriers and their customers to pre-classify products, receive duty assessments, and pre-pay customs duties — all before the shipment leaves its country of origin.

Rather than resolving duties at the border, PreDepart shifts the process upstream. Shippers provide product information (images, descriptions, dimensions, and pricing) and PreDepart returns an HTS classification, calculates the applicable duty, and collects payment, all within the carrier’s existing order flow. When the shipment arrives in the US, CBP receives a verified digital record confirming what’s in the package and that duties have already been paid.

Why this matters

Amazon PreDepart supports CBP’s mission to modernize trade operations, improve security, and increase efficiency at US ports of entry.

For CBP, the service reduces customs processing delays by providing verified shipment data and confirmed duty payment before goods arrive. This eliminates the need to gather basic information at the border. Upon arrival, CBP gains access to digital PreDepart shipment records including product data, and duty payment status, enabling faster identification of high-risk shipments through AI-powered risk analysis. The result: improved revenue collection through verified pre-payment, enhanced security posture, and the ability to focus inspection resources where they matter most.

For postal carriers and shippers, PreDepart reduces uncertainty and creates a more predictable cross-border shipping experience. Duties are assessed and collected before departure, compliance is simplified through automation, and shipments move through US customs with fewer delays. Carriers don’t need to build customs classification expertise in-house — the AI handles the complexity.

How it works: The technology behind PreDepart

Amazon PreDepart was developed combining ACT’s deep trade and customs expertise with AWS generative AI and global cloud infrastructure. The solution brings together AI-powered capabilities across five key dimensions:

Automated HTS Classification. Generative AI analyzes product images and descriptions to assign the correct tariff code from thousands of possible classifications, removing the guesswork and inconsistency of manual classification.

Product Validation. Product information is cross-referenced against product catalogs to ensure accuracy and flag discrepancies before goods are in transit.

Country of Origin Verification. AI-powered image analysis examines product labels to verify declared country of origin, a critical input for accurate duty calculation.

Integrated Duty Calculation and Collection. Once classification and verification are complete, duties are automatically calculated and collected within the carrier’s existing customer order flow — no separate systems, no manual handoffs.

The service delivers an interactive interface designed to integrate seamlessly into existing shipping workflows, enabling classification and collection at scale.

Navigating the path to approval

Bringing Amazon PreDepart to this stage required navigating CBP’s Commercial Solutions Opening Pilot program — a formal government pathway that evaluates commercial technology solutions for trade modernization challenges. The CSOP process is rigorous by design: it ensures that only solutions meeting CBP’s standards for security, accuracy, and operational reliability are approved.

Securing selection required Amazon to demonstrate the ability to serve as a Qualified Party authorized to collect and remit customs duties, technical capability to validate product data and assess duties prior to shipment departure, capacity to provide CBP with pre-verified digital shipment records upon arrival, and AI-powered security and compliance capabilities including shipper verification and risk analysis.

The approval positions ACT as one of the authorized entities to handle duty collection for international mail shipments entering the United States, working directly within CBP’s trade modernization framework.

What our leaders are saying

“We are honored to be selected by US Customs and Border Protection for the Trade Solutions pilot,” said David Cardadeiro, Vice President of Amazon Customs and Trade. “PreDepart is part of our suite of innovative customs brokerage and trade software solutions, and we are proud the technology we provide to global traders through this pilot will help support U.S. customs.”

Get involved

Are you a postal carrier or shipper interested in working with Amazon as your Qualified Party or using Amazon PreDepart for customs duties classification and collection? We’d like to hear from you, connect with our team directly, reach us at predepart-interest@amazon.com

Amazon Customs and Trade (ACT) is Amazon’s trade technology and customs brokerage organization, delivering AI-powered solutions that simplify cross-border commerce for shippers, carriers, and government agencies worldwide.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) provides the most comprehensive and broadly adopted cloud platform, offering over 200 fully featured services from data centers globally. Millions of customers — including government agencies, the fastest-growing startups, largest enterprises, and leading nonprofits — use AWS to lower costs, become more agile, and innovate faster.