CBP Form 7512 In-Bond — What It Is, How to File, Bond & ACE

IT (Immediate Transportation) moves freight from the port of arrival to a destination US port where it will be formally entered. An ocean container arriving in Los Angeles destined for final clearance in Chicago moves on an IT.

T&E (Transportation and Exportation) moves freight through the US from one country to another — Canadian freight passing through US territory to reach another Canadian destination, or Mexican freight moving through the US, is typical T&E.

IE (Immediate Exportation) exports foreign freight out of the US at the same port where it arrived, without ever entering US commerce. Less common for highway carriers.

The in-bond filing is typically made by the carrier — or, more often, by the carrier's broker acting on the carrier's behalf — against the carrier's CBP in-bond bond. A carrier moving freight in-bond must have a CBP-approved bond on file; without one, in-bond authorisation cannot be granted.

The 7512 is filed electronically through ACE, which has largely replaced paper 7512 submission. The paper form is still occasionally produced as a physical lead document that travels with the freight.

An IT in-bond is considered 'closed' when the freight arrives at the destination port and is formally entered there (or re-filed on a subsequent in-bond). The arrival must be reported to CBP within 30 days of the original IT authorisation — freight that disappears from the in-bond system triggers immediate compliance inquiry.

T&E and IE close when the freight is actually exported, documented by the carrier and by CBP at the port of exit. Incomplete exports — freight that was authorised to exit but did not — are treated as serious compliance failures.

The most common 7512 issue for highway carriers is unreported arrival — freight that was moved in-bond from an ocean port to an inland destination, arrived safely, but the in-bond arrival was never reported back to CBP. The freight is fine; the paperwork is not, and CBP follow-up can take months to resolve.

The second common issue is routing mismatch — in-bond authorisations specify the destination port, and diverting freight to a different port requires a formal amendment, not an after-the-fact update. Unamended diversions are a compliance violation even if the cargo itself is clean.

In-bond is now an electronic process in ACE; the paper 7512 survives mainly as a lead document that travels with the freight. The flow:

1. Confirm the bond. The carrier (or its agent) must have a CBP-approved bond on file — you cannot obtain in-bond authorisation without it.
2. Choose the variant. IT to clear inland, T&E to transit the US to another country, or IE to export at the arrival port. The variant drives the rules.
3. File the in-bond in ACE. Submit the transportation entry electronically (the carrier's ACE filer account, or more often the broker/forwarder), referencing the bill(s) of lading, origin, and the destination or export port.
4. Get the in-bond number and authorisation. CBP returns an in-bond number; the freight can then move under bond.
5. Move the freight to the destination or export port named in the in-bond — no unamended diversions.
6. Report arrival / export and close the in-bond. File the arrival (or export) so CBP marks the in-bond closed. For an IT, arrival must be reported within 30 days of authorisation.

Step 6 is where most compliance problems start — see closing the cycle, above.

The paper 7512 has largely been replaced by electronic in-bond in ACE. Filers submit and manage in-bond transactions electronically (the QP/in-bond message set), and CBP mandates electronic arrival and export reporting for in-bond movements. The practical effect for carriers is that in-bond numbers, arrivals, and closures are tracked in the system rather than on paper, and unreported arrivals are far more visible to CBP.

A printed 7512 may still travel with the freight as the physical lead document, but the authoritative record is the ACE transaction. If you file ACE eManifests, your in-bond data lives in the same ecosystem.

CBP publishes Form 7512 on its website, and customs software can generate a completed 7512 PDF from the shipment data. Because in-bond is filed electronically, most carriers rarely fill in a blank 7512 by hand — the form is generated from the ACE transaction. If you need a physical lead document, generating a filled PDF from your filing data is cleaner and less error-prone than a hand-completed pad.