Census Upgrading Severity of AES Alert for Incorrect Foreign Trade Zone Identifier
The Census Bureau is upgrading the severity of an Automated Export System alert that notifies export filers who don’t comply with a 2020 change that expanded the Foreign Trade Zone Identifier from seven to nine characters. The alert, Response Message 15A, is being upgraded from “Informational” to “Compliance Alert,” Census said in an email to industry this week. The upgrade will last for at least 120 days, the agency said, and will be upgraded to a severity of “Fatal” at a later date.
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To resolve the alert, the filer must make sure the foreign trade zone number is in the “required format,” Census said. “The first 3 positions must be numeric and represent the general purpose zone. The next 3 positions are alphanumeric and represent the subzone. The last 3 positions are alphanumeric and represent the site.” The agency also said the number must be “left justified with no trailing spaces,” and the filer should “insert zeros when there is no sub zone or site” and report “leading zero(s) when the general purpose zone is less than 3 numerics, and when the subzone or site is 1 alphanumeric.”