ACI (eManifest) House Bills requirements

As of January 4th, 2021, mandatory filing of electronic house bills (eHBL) is in effect (unless exempt). Under the Advanced Commercial Information and eManifest initiatives, carriers must provide electronic cargo and conveyance data to the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) in advance of their arrival at the Canadian border.

Mandatory requirements:

• all cargo documents will have to be in arrived status before any release notifications are sent out and
• all Warehouse Arrival Certification Messages (WACM) must include warehouse sub-location codes

Regardless of warehouse type, electronic house bills may be used for all consolidated shipments, including:

• “back-to-back” shipments that are single house bill shipments and
• “buyer’s consolidations”, which are shipments where multiple house bills are consolidated together but destined to the same importer

Exceptions to electronic house bills include:

• consolidated in-transit shipments moving from offshore through Canada and destined to the US may continue to be reported using electronic house bills or legacy ACI supplemental reports
• consolidated in-transit shipments of US origin goods that are entering Canada for offshore export will continue to be exempt from electronic house bills

Things to note:

• If a consolidated primary cargo indicates in-transit, then all the house bills within the consolidation must be in-transit.
• A 6 month period of informed compliance and zero-rated penalties will begin as of January 4th, 2021 and end on July 4th, 2021. Electronic house bills for consolidated cargo arriving on or after July 5th, 2021, may be subject to monetary AMPS penalties if freight forwarders are not compliant with electronic house bill, close messages and supplementary reports requirements. See Customs Notice 21-15 for more information. 
• Approved third party service providers may be used to file eManifest house bills.

Shippers are encouraged to assist carriers in meeting eManifest requirements.

To do this, shippers are asked to provide all customs commercial invoice information to carriers about shipments destined to arrive in Canada. Examples of customs commercial information that shippers may provide to carriers include:

• Shipper name and address;
• Consignee name and address;
• Delivery name and address (if different from the Consignee);
• Cargo description, packaging type and quantity;
• Gross weight of shipment;
• Customs Self-Assessment (CSA) information (if applicable to the cargo).

A detailed cargo description is a clear and concise description of an item. The description should be in plain language and detailed enough to allow the CBSA to identify the size, shape and characteristics of the cargo.

If the shipment is consolidated (where house bills and/or a Supplementary Cargo Report are expected to follow), the following descriptions may be accepted on the consolidated cargo document: Freight of All Kinds (FAK); shipper load and count (SLC); consolidated; general merchandise; and other similarly vague descriptions.  A detailed description must be provided on the electronic house bill or supplementary document.

For more information on eManifest requirements, please visit the CBSA website, or contact the eManifest Help Desk at [email protected]. 

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