Let’s Circle Back (and eFile) after the Holidays

The Consumer Product Safety Commission launched its eFiling Beta Pilot a little over a year ago. Non-pilot participants were invited to participate in voluntary eFiling last summer, and the CPSC extended this stage to October 10, as it continued to work on a revised rule. The CPSC had anticipated completing a final rulemaking by the end of its fiscal year, which would have meant a full system implementation around January 1, 2025 – but regardless of when the final rule is published, the CPSC has proposed that the requirements go in effect 120 days after publication in the Federal Register.

Notably, the National Association of Manufacturers submitted comments regarding the rulemaking, highlighting issues with the proposed rules, including the scope of the filing system, technical and financial burdens for implementing the system, and the feasibility of complying with the proposed 120-day effective date window. It remains to be seen whether the CPSC will take these comments into consideration when the staff releases the updated package in the coming weeks, with a commission vote expected before the end of the year.

The eFiling program is the CPSC’s initiative to enable importers of regulated consumer products to file certain data from Certificates of Conformity (COC) electronically with Customs and Border Protection (CBP).This is not merely emailing existing COCs to CPSC or CBP, but digitizing individual data elements of the COC either directly into CBP’s Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) or through CPSC’s Product Registry.

There are many misconceptions related to the new rule and eFiling process and CPSC has created a broad resource library to help importers of record, the parties ultimately responsible for eFiling, comply with the new requirements. Any product that requires a COC today (whether a General Certificate of Conformity or a Children’s Product Certificate) will require eFiling under the new rule. However, the CPSC intends to honor enforcement discretions applied to certain products before the implementation of the eFiling program.

Internal business conversations between import compliance personnel, customs teams, product compliance teams, and brokers to discuss digitizing COC data and developing methods to manage trade parties, such as implementing identification mechanisms within testing programs, should begin, if they haven’t already. The CPSC also has an eFiling newsletter that is published quarterly and is due for another installment in the next month.

Once the final rule is published, eFiling will be a mandatory. So, to ensure compliance, the seamless import of goods, fewer holds at port, fewer targeted shipments, and reduced costs – implicated parties should get familiar and quickly for this fast approaching requirement.