A Year of Actual Use Abroad, and Ownership Does Not Matter
Household effects enter free of duty and tax if they were actually used abroad for at least a year - furniture, carpets, paintings, tableware, books, libraries and other usual household furnishings - and are not intended for another person or for sale. The condition is use, not ownership: effects used for a year by a family of which the importer was a resident member for a year qualify whether or not the importer owned them at the time. And the year need not be continuous, nor need it fall immediately before the move.
At a glance
- Duty and tax on household effects
- Free, under the conditions in the regulation
- How long they must have been used abroad
- Not less than one year
- Must you have owned them
- No - use by a family you belonged to is enough
- Must the year be continuous
- No
- Must it immediately precede the move
- No
- Who may claim it
- Residents and non-residents alike, on the regulation's own words
Requirements
- Actual use abroad for not less than one year
- Not intended for any other person and not for sale
- Proof of use, as the regulation requires
Exceptions by origin
No exceptions recorded
Nothing we have read treats any nationality differently for this topic. The rule above applies to everyone.
What the law says
«Furniture, carpets, paintings, tableware, books, libraries, and other usual household furnishings and effects actually used abroad for not less than 1 year by resident or nonresidents, and not intended for any other person or for sale may be allowed entry free of duty and tax under subheading 9804.00.05, Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States ( 19 U.S.C. 1202 ). Household effects used abroad not less than 1 year by a family of which the importer was a resident member for not less than 1 year during the period of use may be allowed free entry whether or not the importer owned the effects at the time of such use. The year of use need not be continuous, nor need it immediately precede the time of importation.»The exemption and its three softenings - ownership, continuity and timing - all in one paragraph. Most summaries of this relief state only the year.
Read it at the sourceAbout this source
The continuously updated edition of the federal regulations, with an API that renders a single section as HTML at an address naming the title, part and section. Each page states the date the text is current to.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The eCFR is an editorial compilation and is not the official legal edition: the annual Code of Federal Regulations and the daily Federal Register are. A regulation says nothing about the statute's own exceptions, and most of what a reader wants from federal immigration practice is in neither - it is in agency manuals and in state law.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source
Practical notes
This is the household effects exemption. Vehicles, alcohol, tobacco and goods for sale are governed by other sections of the same part and are not read here.
The relief is from duty and tax at the border. It says nothing about what a state charges to register what arrives.
- consolidates19 CFR 148.52, exemption for household effects used abroad
Electronic Code of Federal Regulations, Office of the Federal Register
About this source
The continuously updated edition of the federal regulations, with an API that renders a single section as HTML at an address naming the title, part and section. Each page states the date the text is current to.
Standing: Maintains the text in force
Cannot be cited for: The eCFR is an editorial compilation and is not the official legal edition: the annual Code of Federal Regulations and the daily Federal Register are. A regulation says nothing about the statute's own exceptions, and most of what a reader wants from federal immigration practice is in neither - it is in agency manuals and in state law.
We re-read it every 90 days. More about this source