Unused Merchandise Drawback

Goods qualify when they are exported or destroyed under CBP supervision before the close of the five-year period that starts on the date of import, and were not used in the United States in between. The statute lists operations that are not use as long as they do not amount to manufacture or production: testing, cleaning, repacking, inspecting, sorting, refurbishing, freezing, blending, repairing, reworking, cutting, slitting, adjusting, replacing components, relabeling, disassembling and unpacking (19 U.S.C. 1313(j)(3)). Selling the goods to a domestic customer who then exports them does not disqualify them either; what matters is that the goods themselves were not put to use.

Unused merchandise drawback covers imported goods that leave the country, or are destroyed, essentially as they came in. Manufacturing drawback covers imported materials that are used to make a different article, which is then exported or destroyed. Both refund up to 99% of the duties, taxes and fees paid, both allow substitution at the 8-digit HTS level, and both run on the same five-year clock. The practical difference is the records: unused claims rest on import and export records, while manufacturing claims also need production records and a manufacturing drawback ruling.

Yes. Under 19 U.S.C. 1313(j)(2) you can claim drawback on duty-paid imports when you export or destroy other merchandise, imported or domestic, that is classifiable under the same 8-digit HTS subheading and was not used in the United States. If the 8-digit description begins with "other", the goods must instead share the same 10-digit statistical reporting number, and that description cannot begin with "other" either (1313(j)(5)). Substitution claims are capped at 99% of the lesser of the duty paid on the import or the duty that would apply to the substituted goods. See substitution drawback.

You need the import entries that show the duties, taxes and fees paid, proof of export (or of destruction under CBP supervision), and enough records to tie the two together. Claims are filed electronically in ACE; CBP stopped accepting paper drawback claims in February 2019. A claim must be filed within five years of the date the merchandise was imported. When the importer and the exporter are different companies, the right to claim is passed along with the paperwork. How you pair imports with exports decides how much you recover, which is why drawback matching matters.

DrawbackAI by Stable Software matches imports to exports and assembles unused merchandise claims for customs brokers, who file them for their importer clients under their own filer code and POA. Flat software license. No contingency, no percentage of the refund. See DrawbackAI.