Destination Profiles

Every document and every shipment is checked against CargoLint’s baseline: the same checks whatever the destination. Where a country has a profile, its own requirements are added on top: the elements its customs expects on particular documents, and the documents, filings, identifiers and markings it expects of a shipment. Each requirement cites the regulation or official guidance it comes from. A profile only adds to the baseline; it never removes a check.

Like every check in CargoLint, a profile’s findings are advice. They say what the source asks for and what the documents show, and they never block a document’s approval or count in a shipment’s status.

Three roles

A profile speaks for one country in one role:

• Destination - what the country asks of goods imported into it. Applied for the shipment’s destination. A destination profile can hold both kinds of requirement described below.
• Transit - what the country asks of goods crossing it under customs control. Applied for every country the shipment’s transit fact names (see Transport Documents). A transit country without a profile is listed among the checks not run.
• Export - what the country asks of goods leaving it. Applied when the route’s export country has one. An export country without a profile adds nothing, and is not listed among the checks not run.

Transit and export profiles hold checklist rows only.

Countries with a profile

Country	Destination	Transit	Export
United States	Yes	Yes	Yes
Canada	Yes		Yes
European Union (every member state)	Yes
United Kingdom	Yes
Australia	Yes
Japan	Yes
Mexico	Yes

The European Union is one customs union, so it has one profile, read by all 27 member states. The member-state layer is the VAT rates the tax checks already keep. A shipment to Germany is checked against the EU profile and reads “Checked against Germany import requirements”.

Field checks and checklist rows

A profile requirement is one of two things.

A field check runs on one document. It reads the elements the destination expects on that kind of document and raises a finding for each one missing, graded by the requirement. Today the United States and Canada have field checks:

• United States - the invoice elements of 19 CFR 141.86(a), and the elements of a USMCA certification of origin (19 CFR 182.12) when the certificate claims USMCA preference.
• Canada - the Canada Customs Invoice information of Memorandum D1-4-1 on invoices over CAD 2,500, and the elements of a CUSMA certification of origin when one is claimed.

A field the baseline already reports missing is not reported twice. Field-check findings appear on the document’s issues, and on the shipment page under Destination requirements · on documents.

A checklist row runs on the shipment. It names a document kind or family, a filing, an identifier or a marking the file should carry, and the condition under which it applies. Rows make up the shipment’s expected-documents checklist.

What each profile asks for

United States (destination): a transport document and the commercial invoice (Warning when missing), a packing list, a USMCA certification of origin for goods originating in Canada or Mexico, the dangerous goods declaration when a document mentions dangerous goods, a foreign meat inspection certificate for goods on the USDA FSIS list, and three filings: FDA prior notice for goods on the FDA list, the Importer Security Filing by sea and Air Cargo Advance Screening by air.

United States (transit): for goods crossing the United States under bond, such as goods moving between two points in Canada, the in-bond application, the US-Canada transit manifest by road, the ACE rail manifest by rail, seals intact to the port of exportation, and the ISF-5 for an ocean container landed at a US port for onward carriage.

United States (export): Electronic Export Information through AES, for a shipment over USD 2,500 going anywhere but Canada. The source’s threshold is per Schedule B number; the checklist reads the invoice total, and its note says so.

Canada (destination): the cargo control document (a transport document) and the commercial invoice, a CUSMA certification of origin for goods originating in the United States or Mexico when the CUSMA preference is claimed, the dangerous goods shipping document, the eManifest house bill, the marine cargo report at the first port of arrival in Canada, and, for a domestic movement through the United States, a bonded carrier and the in-transit manifest for road or rail.

Canada (export): an export declaration through CERS for a shipment of CAD 2,000 or more going anywhere but the United States, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands.

European Union: an EORI number, the import customs declaration, the ICS2 entry summary declaration, the commercial invoice, a proof of preferential origin when a CETA, EU-UK or EUR.1 preference is claimed without a statement on origin on the invoice, an authorised CBAM declarant for CBAM goods, CHED pre-notification and the official certificate for animals and products of animal origin, CHED-PP pre-notification and the phytosanitary certificate for plants, and the dangerous goods declaration.

United Kingdom: an EORI number, the import declaration on CDS, the safety and security entry summary declaration, a transport document, the commercial invoice, a packing list, a proof of preferential origin when an EU-UK, EUR.1 or CPTPP preference is claimed without a statement on origin on the invoice, IPAFFS pre-notification for animals and animal products, a health certificate for medium and high risk animal products, and the dangerous goods declaration.

Australia: an Import Declaration or Self-Assessed Clearance, a transport document, the commercial invoice, a packing list, a ChAFTA certificate of origin for goods originating in China, and the dangerous goods declaration. Australia’s biosecurity requirements (the sea container packing declaration and the BICON import conditions) are not part of the profile.

Japan: the import declaration, the invoice, a transport document, a packing list, an EPA proof of origin when a CPTPP preference is claimed (Japan’s other agreements are not in CargoLint’s agreements table), the food import notification for food, and the dangerous goods declaration. Japan’s plant and animal quarantine requirements are not part of the profile.

Mexico: registration in the Padrón de Importadores, the pedimento, the value declaration (manifestación de valor), the commercial invoice (Warning when missing above USD 300), a transport document, a packing list, a T-MEC certification of origin for goods originating in the United States or Canada, and the dangerous goods declaration.

Each row’s exact wording, condition and sources are on the shipment’s checklist, and in What’s covered beside the coverage line.

Destinations without a profile

A destination without a profile gets the baseline only:

• Every document and shipment check CargoLint runs everywhere: required fields, HS codes, totals and weights, dates, Incoterms, tax, regulated goods and protected species, sanctioned parties, and the consistency checks between a shipment’s documents.
• Three checklist rows, at Info when missing: a transport document, a commercial invoice and a packing list.

The coverage line says so: “Baseline checks only: no Brazil import requirements are checked”. When the destination is unknown, no destination’s requirements are checked, and the checks that need it are listed as not run.

A destination’s own row for a kind or family replaces the baseline row for it, so a profile that grades a missing transport document as a Warning is not shown twice.

Effective dates

A requirement can carry the dates it is in force. The checklist judges each row on the shipment’s export date, else its invoice date, else the date of the evaluation, and the checklist header names the date and which of the three it is. A row not yet in force, or no longer in force, on that date is left out. For example, the EU’s authorised CBAM declarant applies from January 1st, 2026, and the US rail export manifest for goods in transit applies from October 26th, 2026.

Value thresholds

Some requirements depend on the shipment’s value: the US invoice elements, the Canada Customs Invoice information, the US and Canadian export filings, Mexico’s invoice. A threshold either decides whether the requirement applies at all, or grades what is missing (a missing US invoice element is an error above USD 2,500 and a warning at or below).

Thresholds are in US or Canadian dollars. CargoLint converts the invoice total from the invoice’s currency into the threshold’s:

• Into Canadian dollars at the Bank of Canada’s rate for the last business day before the conversion date.
• Into US dollars at the Federal Reserve’s H.10 rates, which the Federal Reserve Bank of New York certifies for customs, following CBP’s rule in 19 CFR 159.34 and 159.35: for a currency CBP converts quarterly, the first rate of the quarter unless the day’s rate differs from it by 5 percent or more; otherwise the daily rate.

The conversion date is the same as the judging date: the export date, else the invoice date, else the evaluation date. A rate older than its source allows (a week for the Bank of Canada, two weeks for H.10) is not used. A finding graded by a threshold shows the total, the currencies, the rate’s publisher and the date it was converted at.

When the total cannot be converted, the threshold is listed among the checks not run, with the reason: there is no invoice, its total is missing or negative, its currency is not stated or is written only as $, ¥ or £, its lines are in different currencies, or no usable rate is on file. A requirement that applies only above a threshold then cannot be told; a requirement graded by a threshold takes the grade the profile sets for a value that cannot be converted (a warning for the US invoice elements).

The coverage statement

Every document and every shipment carries a coverage line, shown apart from the findings and never counted:

• Which requirements it was checked against: “Checked against United States import requirements”, “Baseline checks only: no Brazil import requirements are checked”, or, for a document CargoLint does not read, “Not read: CargoLint does not read this kind of document yet”.
• Checks not run, and why: a profile requirement whose data CargoLint does not extract (for example, the port of entry on a US invoice), a threshold the total could not be converted for, a checklist row whose condition reads a fact the documents do not give, a baseline check that needs an unknown destination or export country (such as the VAT rate check), a transit country without a profile, and a document of a kind CargoLint does not read.
• A stale notice, when the profile was last checked against its sources more than 90 days before the evaluation, since its requirements may have changed since.
• HS codes checked at six digits, when the destination is unknown or no national tariff schedule is loaded for it. National schedules are loaded for the United States, Canada and the European Union.

What’s covered opens the list of the profile’s checks, the ones it cannot run, the version the shipment was checked against and the date its sources were last checked. The same summary is available from the API at GET /api/v1/destination-profiles/{destination}.

What’s next

• Expected Documents - The checklist rows, their statuses, and how to declare a fact or mark a row
• Transport Documents - Modes, the route, the first port of arrival and transit
• Shipment Consistency Checks - The baseline checks across a shipment’s documents