Importer of record: paying the duty is not the same as being able to clear

Two different commitments

Under DDP the seller undertakes to clear the goods for import and bear the duties and taxes. That is economically simple: somebody pays. It is legally not simple, because entry is made by a person the law recognizes as entitled to make it, and a foreign seller is frequently not that person — or is, but only after steps nobody costed into the quotation.

The distinction to hold onto: bearing the cost is a contractual matter between buyer and seller, and making the entry is a matter between the declarant and the customs authority. The Incoterms rule settles the first and says nothing about the second. See Incoterms and risk transfer for the other lines the rules do and do not draw.

United States: who may make entry

Entry of merchandise is made by the owner, the purchaser, or a licensed customs broker appointed by one of them. “Owner” and “purchaser” are read broadly — they take in parties with a financial interest in the transaction, including buying and selling agents, consignees, and those importing under loan, lease, or for repair or exhibition — so a foreign seller is not automatically excluded.

The constraint arrives elsewhere. A nonresident corporation cannot enter merchandise for consumption unless it has a resident agent in the state of the port of entry authorized to accept service of process against it, and files a bond with a resident corporate surety.

Read that operationally. It ties the arrangement to the port of entry actually used. A routing change that moves the entry to a different state is not only a freight decision; it can reach the agent requirement behind the entry.

European Union: the declarant must be established

The Union Customs Code is direct: the declarant shall be established in the customs territory of the Union. The derogations are narrow — declarations for transit or temporary admission; persons who occasionally lodge a declaration where customs consider it justified; and persons established in an adjacent country presenting the goods at an adjacent border office, on a reciprocity condition.

“Occasionally” is not a route for a regular trade lane. So a company established outside the EU that wants to import must appoint someone established in the Union to act as declarant. Where that representative acts in its own name on behalf of the represented company, that is indirect representation — and that is the structure a non-EU seller on DDP terms generally needs.

It is also why the service can be hard to buy and is priced accordingly: acting in one's own name is not a clerical role, and forwarders are selective about offering it.

How this actually goes wrong

The sequence is familiar. DDP is quoted because the customer asked for delivered pricing. The shipment moves. At destination it emerges that the seller cannot be the declarant, and the practical fix is improvised under time pressure: the buyer is asked to act as importer after all, or a representative is found at short notice at whatever rate is available, or the goods sit.

Each of those outcomes changes the deal that was agreed. The buyer asked to import is taking on obligations — and potentially a liability for duty and compliance — that the price did not reflect.

Before you quote or accept delivered terms

1. Establish who will be named as importer of record, by name, before agreeing the term.
2. If that is the seller, confirm the seller can lawfully hold the role in that country — and what it needs in place first.
3. In the US, confirm the resident agent arrangement covers the actual port of entry, and that the bond is in place.
4. In the EU, identify the established declarant and whether representation is direct or indirect. Get it agreed in writing, not assumed from a forwarder's quotation.
5. Check who recovers or accounts for import VAT or equivalent — it does not necessarily follow the party paying the duty.
6. Price the arrangement. Representation, bonds and local registration are real costs, and they are the costs DDP quietly transfers.
7. Agree a fallback in the contract for the case where entry cannot be made as planned, so the answer is not improvised at the border.

A note on the other end

EXW has the mirror problem. A buyer taking goods ex works may need to complete export formalities in the seller's country, where it may be equally unable to act. Both terms look like clean allocations of responsibility and both can place a party in a role its own jurisdiction will not let it occupy. Where either is proposed, the question is the same: who will be named on the declaration, and can they be?

This is a general explanation of how the rules are structured, not legal or customs advice. Requirements differ by country and change; confirm the position with the customs authority concerned or a licensed customs broker before relying on a delivered term.

The record behind the entry

Whoever makes the entry answers for what was shipped, when and from where. Cargovate's platform keeps one record of a shipment across carriers and borders, so the party carrying that obligation is working from evidence rather than from someone else's paperwork.