The U.S. Census Bureau’s Foreign Trade Division has a new training video which is designed to help you find the correct Schedule B export codes for your products. This brief tutorial, called “Classifying Your Commodity” covers some of the basics that every trade compliance specialist should know. (For example: “What is a Harmonized Code?” and “How to find a Schedule B Classification Number?”)
These codes are crucial for companies engaged in international trade. Not only does U.S. Customs require an HTS code to be assigned to each product on the import entry paperwork, the U.S. Census Bureau will require either a Schedule B or HTS code on export documents. But with more than 9,000 individual entries across 97 different chapters, finding the correct Schedule B code for your product is not always a simple task.
Last month, Export Solutions hosted a free webinar focused on helping people understand HTS and Schedule B. There are numerous tips and tricks you can employ to help navigate these complex lists of codes. Then again, some of it just takes lots of practice until you start to understand your company’s products and where to locate them in the right Schedule B or HTS chapter.
Here are some additional resources to help:
- Download our recent webinar slides for useful tips, examples and concepts. (Look for the October 10, 2012 session under the “Archived Webinars” section of this page.)
- Get familiar with using Census’ Schedule B Search Engine tool
- Take the brief tutorial video here.
Tom Reynolds is the President of Export Solutions, a consultancy firm which specializes in helping companies with import/export compliance.