What happens when a container is held by CBP

A CBP hold means your cargo is not released. Depending on the hold type, it clears with a document submission, a drive-through X-ray, or a full strip-and-inspect at a Centralized Examination Station — a private facility authorized by CBP to devan, segregate and present cargo for inspection (Flexport). The importer of record pays the cost of making the goods available, and those charges generally have to be settled before the container leaves the port (Shapiro).

Two things most guidance skips. First, CBP is on a clock: if merchandise is not released within 5 days (excluding weekends and holidays) of being presented for examination, it is legally considered detained, you are owed a written notice, and a final admissibility decision is due within 30 days of presentation (19 CFR 151.16). Second, the exam fee is rarely the real cost — drayage, dwell, demurrage and per diem are, and the Federal Maritime Commission's billing rule at 46 CFR Part 541 gives you specific grounds to refuse non-compliant demurrage and detention invoices.

Not every hold is an exam. A manifest hold is usually a data problem — a mismatch between the manifest and the entry — and often clears with a corrected filing. Commercial enforcement and valuation holds mean an import specialist wants documents: invoices, packing lists, payment records, classification support.

Statistical validation holds question the data elements on your entry. Contraband Enforcement Team and security holds are law-enforcement driven and tend to escalate to a physical exam. Partner Government Agency holds — FDA, EPA, CPSC and others — are the outlier: CBP places them, but the admissibility call belongs to the other agency.

That distinction matters more than it sounds. 19 CFR 151.16 expressly does not apply to detentions CBP effects on behalf of other agencies in which the determination of admissibility is vested (19 CFR 151.16(a)). On a PGA hold, you are on that agency's timeline, not CBP's 5-and-30-day clock.

CBP escalates. A non-intrusive X-ray (NII, often called VACIS) scans the container without opening it. A tailgate exam opens the doors and inspects what is reachable from the back. An intensive exam sends the container to a Centralized Examination Station, where it is stripped, inspected and reloaded (Flexport).

The figures below are forwarder-published market ranges, not a CBP fee schedule. There is no national CBP exam tariff, and real costs vary heavily by port, container size and the exam site's own rate card. CES operations themselves are governed by 19 CFR Part 118.

CBP's examination authority comes from 19 U.S.C. 1467. The cost allocation comes from 19 CFR 151.6, which puts the expense of preparing merchandise for CBP examination — including closing packages back up — on the importer (Shapiro).

There is no refund mechanism for a clean exam. If CBP finds nothing, you still pay the exam fee, the bonded drayage to and from the CES, the handling, and whatever dwell accrued while the box sat. Exam charges generally must be paid before the container is released from the port, even when the cargo is moving on to a second CBP- or PGA-mandated exam.

Practically, this is a budgeting problem, not a legal one. Exam exposure belongs in your landed cost assumptions the same way freight and duty do — see how landed cost models break when conditions change mid-PO.

19 CFR 151.16 sets out a sequence most importers never hear about from their broker. Presentation for examination starts it. The counterintuitive part is the end: silence from CBP at day 30 is not a delay, it is a decision you can challenge.

A deemed exclusion is protestable under section 514(a)(4) of the Tariff Act (19 U.S.C. 1514(a)(4)), and a protest that is neither allowed nor denied by the 30th day after filing is treated as denied on that day for purposes of court jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. 1581 (FindLaw reprint of 19 CFR 151.16). That is the door into the Court of International Trade when a container has simply gone quiet.

Keep three outcomes straight. A hold is pre-decision — cargo is not released. A detention is the legal status after day 5, with notice and a 30-day decision deadline attached. A seizure is a different track entirely: it moves you into a petition process with Fines, Penalties and Forfeitures, not a protest.

The freight-side charges are where the money is, and they are governed by a federal billing rule. The FMC's Demurrage and Detention Billing Requirements rule, 46 CFR Part 541 (89 Fed. Reg. 14330), took effect May 28, 2024. Under §541.5, an invoice that lacks the required information does not have to be paid. Under §541.7, ocean carriers must invoice within 30 days of when the charge was incurred and NVOCCs within 30 days of the invoice they received (Husch Blackwell; Benesch).

The billed party must also get at least 30 calendar days from issuance to request mitigation, refund or waiver (HFW). Miss that window and you have given up a remedy that costs nothing to use.

One piece of this changed recently, which is why a lot of online guidance is now partly wrong. On September 23, 2025, the D.C. Circuit decided World Shipping Council v. FMC and vacated §541.4 — the provision defining who may properly receive a D&D invoice — as arbitrary and capricious under the APA (Holland & Knight; Jones Walker). Which parties may lawfully be billed is now unsettled; the invoice-content and timing provisions were not disturbed (Benesch). The practical response is contractual: say in your carrier and forwarder agreements who may be invoiced and on what terms, rather than relying on a vacated regulation.

Separately, the FMC's 2020 interpretive rule at 46 CFR 545.5 judges demurrage and detention against an "incentive principle." Practices that fail to suspend charges when demurrage and detention are incapable of serving their purpose would likely be found unreasonable, and the rule lists factors the FMC may consider — including cargo availability, notice of availability and government inspections (Federal Register).

A hold does not suspend your entry obligations, but duty payment timing follows release. Entry is generally due within 15 calendar days of arrival under 19 CFR 142.2, and the entry summary with estimated duties deposited is due within 10 working days of the date of entry or of immediate delivery release under 19 CFR 142.12 (CBP).

If you are on Periodic Monthly Statement, payment for shipments entered or released during the previous calendar month is due by the 15th business day of the following month (CBP ACE fact sheet), and CBP's notice specifies the month in which merchandise is entered or released, whichever comes first (84 FR 46752). A long exam can push a shipment into the next statement month — a cash-flow effect, not a duty increase.

Do not expect to recover exam costs later. Exam fees, CES handling, bonded drayage, demurrage and per diem are private commercial charges, not duties, taxes or fees imposed on importation — so they fall outside what duty drawback or a duty refund claim can return. The duties themselves are unaffected in amount; only the timing shifts.

Get the hold type and hold code in writing from your broker — manifest, commercial enforcement, statistical validation, CET or PGA. The response, the documents and the applicable clock all depend on it.

Confirm in writing when the cargo was presented for examination. That date starts the 5-day clock under 19 CFR 151.16(b), and without it you cannot tell whether you are owed a Notice of Detention.

Pre-stage the document pack before CBP asks: commercial invoice, packing list, bill of lading, classification support, payment records and any PGA filings. On a document-driven hold, response speed is the only variable you control.

Ask the terminal and the carrier, in writing, to extend free time while the container is unavailable, and cite the inspection circumstance. Then calendar the FMC windows — the 30-day invoice-issuance limit and your 30-day mitigation request — so a disputable charge does not become a paid one.

Finally, separate the two ledgers. Exam-related freight charges are a commercial dispute; your duties are a customs matter. If you export, destroy or re-sell abroad any of the goods that eventually clear, those duties may still be recoverable — the duty drawback analysis is unaffected by the fact the container sat in a CES.