File an ISF (10+2) with US Customs

Customs → ISF Filings is where Importer Security Filings are built and transmitted to US Customs and Border Protection. Linbis is the filer: the payload leaves your organization under your own SCAC, and the transmission is a legal filing recorded against your company.

Two filing types live here. ISF-10 is the importer filing on cargo entering the United States. ISF-5 is the carrier filing for cargo that never enters US commerce — freight remaining on board, and Transportation & Exportation or Immediate Exportation moves under bond.

Before you start

• A CBP connection must be active. Without one, nothing can be previewed or transmitted, and the ISF deadline monitor does not watch your shipments at all.
• You need your own SCAC, enabled by CBP both for transmission and for ISF. An NVOCC also needs an International Carrier Bond (bond activity code 03, 19 CFR 113.64).
• Creating and transmitting filings requires the operator role or higher. Connecting to CBP, and reading a stored EDI message, require manager.

Connect to CBP

Go to Settings → Integrations → Customs. The onboarding stepper has four steps, and you only act on the first two:

1. Tell us about your company — a guided form. Every answer goes into your Letter of Intent, and each field explains why CBP asks for it: legal identity and address, filing capacity (NVOCC, importer of record, or licensed customs broker), SCAC, importer of record number, bond status, expected monthly volume, and a named contact.
2. Letter of Intent to CBP — review the generated letter and send it. You confirm by typing SEND.
3. CBP enables your SCAC — the Linbis customs team reviews the letter and tracks the enablement. Typically three to five business days, occasionally longer.
4. Connected — the API key is issued and verified for you. Nothing to do.

If the review comes back as Needs changes, the reviewer's note is shown to you exactly as written. Choose Revise and resend; nothing you entered is lost.

When onboarding finishes, the connection card shows the masked key, the SCAC, and a Test connection button. Fill in the carrier bond defaults on that card too: they are the default bond on ISF-5 filings, and an ISF-5 transmitted without complete bond details is normally rejected by CBP with codes S19, S99 and S98 together.

Create a filing

From a shipment — open the shipment, expand Customs & Compliance, and choose Create ISF on the ISF card. The filing is linked to the shipment, pre-filled from it, and its deadline is computed from the shipment schedule. This is the usual path; see Start an ISF from an ocean shipment.

Standalone — on Customs → ISF Filings, choose New ISF-10 or New ISF-5. There is no dialog: the filing is created immediately and opens. A standalone filing has no shipment behind it, so you set the Filing deadline yourself.

Fill in the filing

The workspace is one page with six sections.

Filing header — filing type, your own filing reference (CBP echoes it on every response), the CATAIR shipment type, the action reason, the estimated arrival, the deadline, and three ports. Two of the ports carry their legal "10+2" names: Foreign Port of Unlading and Place of Delivery. The Port of entry must resolve to a CBP Schedule D code — if it does not, the filing is blocked and the port has to be corrected.

Bill references — how CBP finds your cargo on the manifest. A house-level filing carries the house bill as BM with its master as OB; a regular filing carries exactly one OB. The issuer SCAC must be the carrier that actually issued that bill, and the bill number goes in without the SCAC prefix. With no bill reference at all, CBP's answer is always "no bill match".

ISF importer & bond — the ISF importer, the importer of record (ISF-10 only), and the bond. Watch the code lists: they are different for each block. An EIN is 24 on the importer, EI on the bond holder. ID numbers are stored encrypted and come back as a last-4 mask — leave one blank to keep what is stored.

Parties — seller, buyer, ship-to, consolidator, container stuffing location, consignee, booking party. Choosing an account copies its details in once; from then on the filing transmits its own snapshot, not the account. A missing booking party is one of the two documented causes of a CBP 366 rejection.

Containers & commodities — one line per container, each with at least one commodity carrying an HTSUS number and a country of origin, plus the manufacturer.

In-bond — ISF-5 only: 00 for freight remaining on board, 62 for Transportation & Exportation, 63 for Immediate Exportation.

Saving is explicit. Save filing persists your work and re-checks the filing; Discard changes throws the edits away.

Watch the completeness rail

Beside the form, the rail lists every element that still blocks the filing, grouped by section, with Go to the first problem to jump straight to it. When it reads "Ready to preview and transmit." the filing has passed every check Linbis can run before CBP sees it.

Preview — exactly what we are sending

Preview EDI opens the panel titled "What we are sending to CBP". It is not a summary. Every element of the actual payload is listed with its value, where the value came from, and its CBP reference. A second block, Not being sent, lists what is absent and why — deferred under flexible timing, optional and left empty, or not applicable to this filing type. CBP judges what arrives and what does not, so read both.

Managers can also open the EDI (X12) view to see the raw message. That read is audited every time.

Any save invalidates a preview. If you change the filing after previewing, build a fresh preview before transmitting — the transmit action stays disabled until you do.

Transmit

Transmit to CBP asks you to type the word SUBMIT in full. That is deliberate: the word, your name, and a fingerprint of the exact payload you approved are all recorded on the submission.

The banner then tracks the transmission live:

Read the filing status

Separately, the bill match chip carries CBP's answer about the manifest: Awaiting bill, Bill matched, or No bill match. An unmatched filing stays on file and re-matches by itself once the carrier's bill reaches AMS — it is not a rejection.

When CBP rejects a filing

A rejection is re-filed, not amended. Amendments need the CBP transaction number that only acceptance produces, so the amend actions are hidden on a rejected filing. Correct the data, save, preview again, and transmit as a new filing.

CBP's reason arrives in plain language on the filing. The ones you are most likely to meet:

Amend or delete an accepted filing

On an accepted filing, File amendment (replace) sends CBP a corrected version against the transaction number it issued; Delete filing withdraws the filing entirely. Both require typing REPLACE or DELETE in full. After a delete, CBP no longer holds an ISF for that cargo, and the obligation to file 24 hours before lading applies again if the cargo still moves.

Deadlines

Linbis computes the deadline from how the cargo actually moves, and alerts you at 72, 48 and 24 hours before it, and again once it has passed.

The four answers that drive this live on the shipment under ISF movement facts: freight remaining on board, break-bulk cargo, an AMS break-bulk exemption on file, and whether the cargo moves in bond. Change them only when you know how the cargo really moves — the break-bulk exemption in particular can move a deadline by weeks in either direction.

Deadline alerts only run for organizations with an active CBP connection. Disconnecting turns them off.

Tips

• Filing late, or not at all, carries liquidated damages of $5,000 per violation, plus holds and exam delays. Treat the countdown as a hard cutoff.
• Flexible timing (action reasons FT and FX) defers the consolidator and the container stuffing location, but does not forgive them. Linbis chases the real values 24 hours before arrival.
• Exports are the mirror image: ocean exports over $2,500 need EEI/AES filing instead.

Related

• Start an ISF from an ocean shipment
• Shipments screen reference