Customs Rules for Returning Residents

KNOW BRFORE YOU GO

CONTENTS

• Your Declaration
• Oral, written, family
• Warning--Penalties
• Underevaluation, failure to declare
• Your Exemptions
• $400, $600, $1200, $25
• Cigars, cigarettes, alcoholic beverages
• Time limitations
• Gifts
• Mailed to friends and relatives
• Accompanying you
• Other Articles: Free of Duty or Dutiable
• Duty-free products from developing countries
• Personal belongings mailed home
• Foreign-made articles taken abroad
• Vehicles, airplanes, boats taken abroad
• Household effects
• Flat rates of duty
• Payment of duty
• Various rates of duty
• Prohibited and Restricted Articles
• Prohibited items
• Artifacts (see Cultural Property)
• Automobiles
• Biological materials
• Books, records, computer programs and cassettes
• Ceramic tableware
• Cultural property (pre-Columbian)
• Drug paraphernalia
• Firearms, ammunition
• Food products, fruits and vegetables
• Gold
• Meats, livestock, poultry
• Medicine containing narcotics, fraudulent drugs
• and medical devices
• Merchandise from Cambodia (Kampuchea), Cuba,
• Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and Vietnam
• Money and other monetary instruments
• Pets
• Plants
• Textiles
• Trademarked articles
• Wildlife and fish
• Customs Pointers
• Traveling back and forth across the border
• "Duty-free" shops, sales slips
• Packing your baggage, photographic film
• Shipping hints: mail, express, freight
• Unaccompanied tourist purchases
• Storage charges
• Notice to California residents
• Location of Customs Offices
• Your Declaration
• You must declare all articles acquired abroad and in your
• possession at the time of your return. This includes:

1. Articles that you purchased.
2. Gifts presented to you while abroad, such as wedding or
3. birthday presents.
4. Articles purchased in duty-free shops.
5. Repairs or alterations made to any articles taken abroad
6. and returned, whether or not repairs or alterations were
7. free of charge.
8. Items you have been requested to bring home for another
9. person.
10. Any articles you intend to sell or use in your business.