A customs broker can only act for an importer under a valid power of attorney, a corporate POA for a company, executed by an officer with authority. The grant lets the broker transact customs business in the importer's name: file entries, make declarations, endorse documents, and deal with CBP on the importer's entries. The liability for what is filed stays with the importer of record. The POA delegates the hand, not the responsibility, and that asymmetry is the whole document in one sentence.
A properly drawn customs POA follows the regulatory language and is limited to customs business. Read yours for drift: grants that wander into general agency, authority over refunds made out to the broker beyond the recognised arrangements for duty refunds, or terms that survive in odd ways. Duty refund handling deserves its own look, because refunds are money leaving the system in your name, and the check's destination should be a deliberate, documented choice, not a default in a form nobody read.
Sub agents matter too. Brokers may act through affiliated or employed sub agents under the POA's terms, and large brokers file through service centres the importer never sees. That is normal practice, and it is also why the POA should name the broker entity precisely and be reissued when the broker's legal entity changes in a merger, a detail that surfaces painfully when an old POA names a company that no longer exists.
CBP and brokers check that the POA was signed by someone with corporate authority, a requirement enforced because the entries filed under it bind the company. A POA signed by an employee without that authority, or for the wrong legal entity after a restructure, is a defect under every entry filed on it. Keep the executed POA, and the evidence of the signer's authority, with your customs records for the retention period, and refresh it when officers, entities, or addresses change. It is a five minute document that underpins five years of filings.
Revocation is the importer's right at any time, in writing, and changing brokers should always include it: revoke the old grant expressly, issue the new one, and confirm the old broker's access and any ongoing entries are handed over in an orderly way. Importers who skip the revocation leave a live authority outstanding in the name of a firm they no longer employ.
Signing a thorough POA and hiring a good broker still leaves reasonable care where the law puts it, on the importer. The broker files what the importer gives them. Classification data, values, and origin claims originate in the importer's records, and a POA does not convert the broker into the guarantor of those facts. Use the POA conversation to set the working terms that do protect you: who supplies classification and on what evidence, how errors are corrected, how liquidation and protest deadlines are reported, and how records flow back to you.
Confirm the current regulatory requirements for your POA with your broker when you sign. The document is short. The entries it authorises are your entire import history, and they deserve the five minutes.
Related reading: How do you audit your customs broker's entries before CBP does?, What happens when CBP rejects your entry summary?.
An officer or other person with actual authority to bind the company in customs matters, which the broker is expected to verify. A signature from someone without that authority can invalidate the grant. When in doubt, evidence the authority at signing and file it with the document, because the question, if it comes, comes years later.
No. The importer of record remains liable for duties, penalties arising from its own information, and the accuracy of its entries. The broker has its own regulatory obligations and liability for its own conduct, but the POA does not transfer the importer's liability, and no wording in it can.
Revoke the old POA in writing, execute a new POA for the incoming broker, and agree the handover of open entries, bonds, and records in writing with dates. Tell your surety and check who holds your continuous bond relationship. The customs work is a chain of deadlines, and a clean handover is measured by none of them being missed.
Yes, with additional formalities: a nonresident corporation's POA must be executed as the regulations require, including certification elements and a resident agent element for service, reflecting that CBP needs a reachable party. Foreign importers should take broker advice on the exact form before the first entry depends on it.