Effective November 5, 2012, the Postal Service™ will revise Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, International Mail Manual (IMM®) part 123 to reflect revisions to PS Form 2976, Customs Declaration CN 22 — Sender’s Declaration. The revised PS Form 2976 has an edition date of September 2012 and includes several enhancements to the December 2009 edition. Images of various pages of the revised form appear on pages 10–11 in this issue of the Postal Bulletin.
The revisions to the September 2012 edition of PS Form 2976 include the following:
n The Instructions page contains textual changes that account for revised governmental regulations regarding exportation.
n The Scan copy was eliminated, which reduces the number of copies in the form set to two copies.
n On each copy, the requested information for both the sender and the addressee is revised to include specific fields (e.g., Last Name, First Name, Business, etc.) as well as a new field for both the sender’s and addressee’s telephone/fax or email address to facilitate export compliance.
n The contents section is revised to include two new checkboxes, one for “Dangerous Goods” and one for “Humanitarian Donation.”
n A “Country of Origin” column is added to identify the country where the goods being mailed originated.
n The Mailing Office Date Stamp is relocated from the right side of the form to the left side so that each form applied to the package will have a round date.
n The reverse of the Sender’s Instructions includes the current Privacy Act Statement.
We will publish a separate article in a later issue of the Postal Bulletin to announce when the revised PS Form 2976 is available for ordering from the Material Distribution Center (MDC) and when it is available online.
Based on the availability announcement to be published in an upcoming Postal Bulletin article, postmasters must order the revised PS Form 2976 from the MDC.
Upon receiving stock from the MDC, postmasters must immediately replace previous editions of PS Form 2976 with the September 2012 edition, and must recycle or discard the previous editions.
For ease of use, mailers also have the option of completing and printing customs declarations electronically at www.usps.com/ship/customs-forms.htm.
Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, International Mail Manual (IMM)
1 International Mail Services
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120 Preparation for Mailing
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123 Customs Forms and Online Shipping Labels
123.1 General
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[Revise the Note to read as follows (changing the edition date for PS Form 2976):]
Note: The current edition of PS Form 2976 is September 2012;***
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123.7 Completing Customs Forms
123.71 PS Form 2976, Customs Declaration CN 22 — Sender’s Declaration
123.711 Sender’s Preparation of PS Form 2976
[Revise the introductory paragraph to read as follows (referring to multiple exhibits):]
A sender must complete PS Form 2976, Customs Declaration CN 22 — Sender’s Declaration. See Exhibits 123.711a and 123.711b for images of PS Form 2976.
[In the list, revise item a and items g–k to read as follows:]
a. Check all applicable boxes to indicate whether the package contains a gift, documents, commercial samples, or other items. Check the box for “Dangerous Goods” if the shipment contains dangerous goods that are approved for mailing.
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g. In block (5) — which is only for commercial items (i.e., any goods exported/imported in the course of a business transaction whether or not they are sold for money or exchanged) — enter, if known, the 6-digit Harmonized Tariff Schedule number, which is based on the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System developed by the World Customs Organization.
h. In block (6), enter, if known, the “Country of Origin,” which is the country where the goods originated — i.e., where they were produced/manufactured or assembled.
i. In block (7), enter the total quantity, weight, and value of all articles.
j. In block (8), check “NOEEI § 30.37(a)” or “NOEEI § 30.37(h),” depending on the applicable Automated Export System (AES) Exemption.
k. In block (9), sign and date in the blocks indicated on the left side and the right side of the form. The sender’s signature certifies that all entries are correct and the item(s) being mailed contain no undeclared dangerous, prohibited, or restricted contents per postal, customs, or destination country regulations. The sender’s signature also certifies compliance with all applicable federal export licensing and filing regulations and confirms the sender’s liability for the item(s) being mailed.
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[Replace Exhibit 123.711 with Exhibits 123.711a and 123.711b to read and appear as follows:]
Exhibit 123.711a PS Form 2976, Customs Declaration CN 22 — Sender’s Declaration
(Sender’s Instructions — Front and Reverse)
Exhibit 123.711b PS Form 2976, Customs Declaration CN 22 — Sender’s Declaration (Copy 1 and Copy 2)
123.712 Postal Service Employee’s Acceptance of PS Form 2976
The Postal Service acceptance employee must do the following when accepting PS Form 2976 from the sender:
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[Revise items d and e, and add new item f to read as follows:]
d. Round stamp the left side of Copy 1 (the Post Office copy) and the left side of Copy 2 (the shipping label). Tell the sender that the Postal Service will retain Copy 1 for 30 days as a record of mailing.
e. To comply with U.S. Census Bureau requirements, it is the customer’s responsibility to ensure that an appropriate AES Exemption is selected or displayed on PS Form 2976. In addition, items sent to Cuba may require an Internal Transaction Number or AES Downtime Citation.
f. A customer desiring evidence that the mailing has been presented to the Postal Service may purchase a certificate of mailing (see 310).
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We will incorporate these revisions into the next update of the online IMM, which is available via Postal Explorer® at http://pe.usps.com.
— International Strategy & Business Development Support, Global Business, 10-18-12
