CBP published its filing guidance for the Section 338 Canada scope change on September 11, 2026, and that change took effect at 12:01 a.m. eastern time on Tuesday, September 15. As of today, September 17, 2026, it is already live and already mis-filable: 122 HTSUS classifications were added to the 50 percent additional duty, nine were removed, and one sentence in the guidance narrows who may claim a 0 percent exemption heading. Separately, and twelve days from today, three companion proclamations stop being tariffs altogether and become an import prohibition.
Two different things happened to the same importers fourteen days apart. They require two different responses, and confusing them is the expensive mistake this month.
What CBP published on September 11
The message is CSMS #69851916, "Modifying Section 338 Additional Duties on Certain Goods of Canada," issued September 11, 2026 at 4:49 p.m. EDT. It is CBP's filing instruction for two scope proclamations signed September 8, 2026: Proclamation 11064 (alcoholic beverages) and Proclamation 11065 (motor vehicles). Both published in the Federal Register on September 14, 2026 — Proclamation 11064 begins at 91 FR 58331.
Section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 (19 U.S.C. 1338) is the statute behind all of this. It lets the President impose additional duties on the products of a country found to discriminate against U.S. commerce and, where that discrimination continues, exclude that country's articles from importation entirely. The July and August 2026 rounds used the duty half of the statute. September uses both halves at once.
Per the CSMS, the scope change adds 122 additional HTSUS classifications to the 50 percent Section 338 additional duty under heading 9903.03.12 or 9903.03.14, and removes nine HTSUS classifications from those same two headings, effective for goods entered for consumption or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern time on September 15, 2026.
The rate structure CBP restates in the message:
- 9903.03.12 — 50 percent additional ad valorem
- 9903.03.13 — 50 percent additional ad valorem
- 9903.03.14 — 50 percent additional ad valorem
- 9903.03.15 — 0 percent additional ad valorem
- 9903.03.16 — 0 percent additional ad valorem
We walked through the original entry-summary mechanics — line order on the 7501, the fact that the 0 percent headings are still reportable Chapter 99 lines rather than "skip Chapter 99" — in Section 338 on Canadian goods is live. That structure has not gone away. What changed on Tuesday is which Chapter 1–97 codes map into it.
The sentence that will misfile the most entries
Here is the operative line from CSMS #69851916, verbatim:
"As of September 15, 2026, only goods subject to HTSUS 9903.03.13 are eligible to claim HTSUS 9903.03.15."
Read that as a filing rule, because that is what it is. 9903.03.15 carries a 0 percent additional rate — it is the heading an importer reports to show a covered good is not carrying the additional duty. As of September 15, that claim is only available to goods that fall under 9903.03.13. A 9903.03.15 claim on anything else is now wrong.
This is the kind of change that does not announce itself at the port. An entry template built in late August, when a broader set of goods could carry the 0 percent line, will keep generating that line this week without erroring, and the importer of record owns the declaration either way. If your Canadian-origin entries carry 9903.03.15 anywhere, the question to answer today is whether those specific goods are 9903.03.13 goods. If they are not, the line has to come off.
The same logic runs in the other direction for the additions. If one of your 8-digit codes is among the 122 that moved onto 9903.03.12 or 9903.03.14, entries filed since Tuesday need the Chapter 99 line and a landed cost that reflects 50 percent additional ad valorem. There is no grace window in the message.
Nine classifications came off, which is the quieter problem
Nobody chases money they were never billed. They do, however, keep paying a duty that stopped applying, and that is also a filing error.
The CSMS removes nine classifications from 9903.03.12 and 9903.03.14. Among the removals we can name from the message are 2208.30.60, 2208.70.00, and 2501.00.00 — rock salt. We are not listing the remainder here from memory or from a secondhand recap; the full removal list is in the CSMS itself, and the operative product lists are in the annexes to Proclamations 11064 and 11065. Pull your own codes and check them against the message.
That caution matters more than it sounds. The Federal Register annexes for these proclamations are image PDFs, and we have not read them line by line. We are not going to tell you what is on them. What we can tell you is that a line-by-line check of your Canadian-origin 8-digit HTSUS codes against the annex and the CSMS is the step — not a check of product category names against a headline.
If an entry did go out on or after September 15 with a Chapter 99 line that no longer applies, or without one that now does, a post summary correction (PSC — the electronic amendment to a filed entry summary, available before liquidation) is the mechanism for correcting your own filing. Strix files PSCs at $150 per entry for up to 10 lines. We file the correction; CBP decides what happens to it. Our post summary corrections page covers the window and the process.
Three answers the August round left open
The August guidance left real ambiguity on Chapter 98, foreign trade zones, and drawback — our earlier article flagged a citation mismatch between 9903.04.12–14 and 9903.03.12–16 in the Chapter 98 and drawback paragraphs and told readers to confirm with CBP rather than guess. CSMS #69851916 addresses all three directly.
Chapter 98. The additional duties do not apply to goods entered under Chapter 98, with an explicit carve-out: subheadings 9802.00.40, 9802.00.50, 9802.00.60 and 9802.00.80. For those four, the additional duty applies to the value of the repair or processing — not to the full value of the article. If you run goods out for repair or alteration and back in, or send U.S. components abroad for assembly, this is the paragraph to hand your entry writer.
Foreign trade zones. Covered goods must be admitted to an FTZ in privileged foreign status under 19 C.F.R. 146.41. That is a requirement, not an option, and it is worth confirming with your zone operator before your next admission rather than after.
Drawback. The additional duties imposed under 9903.03.12 through 9903.03.14 are eligible for drawback, per the CSMS. Drawback availability varies across the 2026 trade remedies, so do not assume the treatment you apply to one remedy carries to this one — check each. Eligibility is also not a refund: a drawback claim still has to be filed, substantiated, and decided by CBP.
For how these Section 338 lines sequence against the other remedies already sitting on your Canadian entries, our 2026 tariff stacking guide covers the order and the stacking rules.
September 29 is not a rate change at all
The second half of this story is not a tariff, and that is the part that keeps getting flattened in summaries.
Three companion proclamations signed the same day — 11061 (alcoholic beverages, 91 FR 58311–58317), 11062 (dairy, 91 FR 58319–58323) and 11063 (motor vehicles, 91 FR 58325–58329), all published September 14, 2026 — do not raise a duty. Each one excludes the listed Canadian products from importation entirely, effective 12:01 a.m. eastern time on Tuesday, September 29, 2026. Each converts the 50 percent duty its July 20, 2026 predecessor imposed (11046 alcoholic beverages, 11047 dairy, 11048 motor vehicles) into a prohibition under Section 338.
There is no Chapter 99 heading that makes an excluded article admissible. There is no higher rate you can elect to pay. We covered why that breaks an importer's normal reflexes in Canada: a 50 percent duty becomes an import ban; what has changed since is that the Federal Register text is now published and citable, so the in-transit language below is quotable rather than provisional.
The in-transit rule is the lever, and it turns on importation
All three exclusion proclamations carry the same sentence. From Proclamation 11061:
"Products that will be subject to the import ban in this proclamation that were imported, but not yet entered for consumption, or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption, prior to September 29, 2026, will remain subject to the 50 percent duty rate established by Proclamation 11046."
Proclamations 11062 and 11063 carry the identical construction, pointing at 11047 and 11048 respectively.
The pivot is importation, not filing. Goods already imported before September 29 that have not yet been entered for consumption or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption stay under the 50 percent duty rather than falling under the ban. On that text, merchandise that arrives September 26 and is entered October 5 reads as a 50 percent event; merchandise that arrives September 30 reads as excluded, however ready your paperwork was.
Two practical consequences. First, arrival timing and warehouse position carry the weight that classification normally does — goods sitting in a bonded warehouse were imported when they arrived, so a later withdrawal for consumption reads on this text as dutiable rather than barred. Second, your evidence of importation date is now a compliance document. Bills of lading, arrival notices, in-bond records, warehouse admission records: get them into the entry file now, not in November.
We are describing the rule as written and stopping there. We are not telling you to rush cargo across a border, and we do not predict how CBP will interpret or enforce any of it.
What CBP has not published as of September 17, 2026
As of today, September 17, 2026, CBP has issued no CSMS filing guidance for the September 29 import ban. CSMS #69851916 addresses the scope change under Proclamations 11064 and 11065. It is not guidance for the exclusions under 11061, 11062 and 11063.
That means no published ACE mechanics for the prohibition, no published instruction on how an importation date will be validated against the in-transit sentence, and no CBP statement on how an entry for excluded merchandise will behave in the system. We are not going to predict when or whether that guidance arrives. We will note that in the August round, CBP's instructions issued the night before the effective date — plan for late rather than early, and re-verify this article against the CSMS message when it lands.
What to do in the next twelve days
- Pull your Canadian-origin SKU list with 8-digit HTSUS codes. Codes, not commercial descriptions. A category name is not a compliance determination.
- Check each code against CSMS #69851916 and the annexes to Proclamations 11064 and 11065. Additions and removals both require action, in opposite directions.
- Audit every entry filed since 12:01 a.m. on September 15 for a 9903.03.15 claim, and confirm the goods are 9903.03.13 goods. If they are not, that claim is wrong as of Tuesday.
- Fix your entry templates and self-filing configuration in both directions — add the Chapter 99 line where it now applies, remove it where it no longer does.
- Check each code against the exclusion annexes to Proclamations 11061, 11062 and 11063. If a line is on an exclusion annex, your decision is about landing and entering the goods before September 29, not about paying a duty.
- Inventory what is in transit and what sits in a warehouse, with arrival dates documented, so the in-transit sentence applies to real shipments rather than a hypothetical.
- Bring the commercial side of the business in now if an excluded category is load-bearing in your sourcing. Twelve days is short for a sourcing change and very short for a contract conversation.
Only if the goods are subject to HTSUS 9903.03.13. CSMS #69851916 states that as of September 15, 2026, only goods subject to 9903.03.13 are eligible to claim 9903.03.15. If your entries carry that claim on other goods, it is no longer correct, and the importer of record owns the declaration.
My product came off the duty list on September 15. Do I get money back on earlier entries?
The scope change is forward-looking — it governs goods entered for consumption or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption on or after 12:01 a.m. eastern time on September 15, 2026. Nothing in CSMS #69851916 establishes a refund program for entries before that moment. What is in your control is not continuing to declare a duty that no longer applies. If a post–September 15 entry went out with the line still on it, a PSC is the tool for correcting your filing, and CBP decides the outcome.
Can I pay a higher duty to keep importing after September 29?
No. Proclamations 11061, 11062 and 11063 exclude the listed products from importation rather than pricing them. There is no rate and no Chapter 99 heading that makes an excluded article admissible. The only mechanism in the text is the in-transit rule, which keeps goods imported before September 29 — but not yet entered for consumption or withdrawn from warehouse for consumption — at the 50 percent duty rate rather than under the ban.
Are these additional duties eligible for drawback?
Yes, per CSMS #69851916: duties imposed under 9903.03.12 through 9903.03.14 are eligible for drawback. Eligibility is not the same as a payment — a claim still has to be filed and substantiated, and CBP decides it. If you re-export Canadian-origin goods or articles made from them, this is worth reviewing with whoever owns your drawback program.
How we help
Two changes, fourteen days apart, that need different answers. One is a Chapter 99 and classification problem that is already live on every entry you file this week. The other is a shipment that may not have a compliant path in twelve days.
We can clear Canadian-origin entries with the Chapter 99 lines CBP published in CSMS #69851916, consult on how the 9903.03.15 restriction, the Chapter 98 carve-outs, the FTZ privileged-foreign requirement and the in-transit sentence apply to your specific subheadings and shipments, comply by getting entry summaries and PSCs right in both directions after September 15, and automate the template and validation changes so a removed duty line does not keep riding on your entries into next quarter. Self-filing runs $30 per entry, brokerage $100–$250 per entry, and PSCs $150 per entry for up to 10 lines. CBP decides admissibility, rates, and claims; we handle the filing.
If you import Canadian alcoholic beverages, dairy, or motor vehicle products, talk to our team this week. If you would rather have a licensed broker on the entry itself, start at brokerage.
This article states the position as of September 17, 2026. CBP had issued no filing guidance for the September 29 exclusions as of that date. Verify against the CSMS message and the Federal Register text before acting.