CUSTOMS COMPLIANCE | 2026-09-20

September 30 Is the Deadline That Turns Your Cash Deposit Into Your Final Duty Bill

If no one requests an administrative review by the last day of September 2026, Commerce instructs CBP to assess duties at the deposit rate — and the chance at a calculated rate is gone for those entries.

Commerce's annual opportunity notice, published September 1, 2026, sets the last day of September as the cutoff for requesting administrative review of antidumping and countervailing duty orders with a September anniversary month. Importers who let the date pass do not preserve the status quo; they convert an estimated cash deposit into the final assessed rate for those entries. Because a review request can be withdrawn within 90 days of the initiation notice but can never be filed late, the dea

There is a trade deadline on September 30, 2026 that costs nothing to meet and can cost a great deal to miss. Commerce's annual opportunity notice, published September 1, 2026, sets the last day of September as the cutoff for requesting administrative review of antidumping and countervailing duty orders with a September anniversary month. Importers who let the date pass do not simply keep the status quo. They lock in a specific outcome.

What happens if nobody asks

The notice states the consequence plainly. If Commerce does not receive, by the last day of September 2026, a request for review of entries covered by an order, finding, or suspended investigation listed in the notice and for the period identified, Commerce will instruct CBP to assess antidumping or countervailing duties on those entries at a rate equal to the cash deposit of estimated duties required at the time of entry, or withdrawal from warehouse, for consumption — and to continue collecting the cash deposit previously ordered.

Read that twice, because the default is doing real work. Without a review request, the deposit rate becomes the assessment rate. Whatever the importer actually deposited is what the importer actually owes. There is no later proceeding in which a lower rate gets calculated for those entries.

Why the deposit rate is often the wrong rate

Cash deposit rates are estimates. They are set at the conclusion of an investigation or a prior review and then applied prospectively to entries that had nothing to do with the data behind them. In the intervening period, a foreign producer's pricing, costs, and subsidy receipts can move substantially.

An administrative review is the mechanism for replacing that estimate with a calculated rate based on the actual period of review. Sometimes the calculated rate is higher, which is exactly why a review request is a decision and not a reflex. But when a producer's actual margin has fallen — or fallen to zero — a review is the only route to the refund, and a party who does not ask forfeits that route for those entries.

For an importer carrying meaningful deposits, the difference between the deposit rate and a calculated rate can be the difference between an ordinary year and a write-off. Quantifying that gap before the deadline is straightforward customs defense analysis, and it is far cheaper than discovering the answer after liquidation.

Who may request, and how

An administrative review may be requested by interested parties, which include domestic producers, foreign producers and exporters, and importers of the subject merchandise. Requests must be filed electronically through Enforcement and Compliance's Antidumping and Countervailing Duty Centralized Electronic Service System, known as ACCESS.

The electronic filing requirement matters operationally. ACCESS access is not something to arrange on the afternoon of the deadline. Parties who have not filed before should confirm their account, their credentials, and the correct case segment well in advance. A request that misses the cutoff because of an account problem is as ineffective as one never filed.

The anniversary month is the organizing principle

The system runs on anniversaries. Each year, during the anniversary month of the publication of an order, interested parties may request review of entries during the preceding period. That is why this particular deadline attaches to orders with a September anniversary, and why an importer's calendar obligations depend entirely on which orders cover its merchandise.

This is the part that quietly defeats compliance programs. An importer sourcing across several orders may face requests due in different months across the year. There is no single annual date to remember. The only reliable approach is a matrix of the orders that actually touch your entries, each with its anniversary month, maintained as a live document rather than reconstructed each time a notice appears.

A request can be withdrawn

Requesting a review is not an irrevocable commitment. A party that requests a review may withdraw that request within 90 days of the date of publication of the notice of initiation.

That window has real strategic value. It converts the September deadline from a final judgment into a preserved option. A party who is uncertain — who suspects the calculated rate may be favorable but has not finished the analysis — can file to preserve the right and then withdraw inside the window if the numbers come back wrong. What cannot be done is the reverse. There is no mechanism to request a review after the deadline has passed.

The asymmetry should drive behavior. The cost of filing and later withdrawing is modest. The cost of not filing and then wanting a review is the entire difference between the deposit rate and whatever the calculated rate would have been.

One narrow protection for first reviews

The notice also records a specific rule for first reviews: for the first administrative review of any order, there will be no assessment of antidumping or countervailing duties on entries of subject merchandise entered, or withdrawn from warehouse, for consumption during the relevant provisional-measures gap period of the order, if such a gap period applies to the period of review.

Gap periods arise from the timing between provisional measures lapsing and an order issuing. The protection is narrow and applies only where the facts line up, but for importers whose entries fall in that interval it is worth identifying rather than assuming away.

What to do in the next ten days

Start from entry data. Identify every order that covers merchandise you imported during the relevant period, and confirm the anniversary month for each. Then quantify: for each order, compare the cash deposit rate you paid against a realistic estimate of what a calculated rate would look like, and identify the total deposits at stake on unliquidated entries.

Where the analysis favors a review, or where the answer is genuinely unclear, filing before the deadline preserves the option that withdrawal can later release. Where it plainly does not, document the decision so that the file reflects a considered judgment rather than an oversight.

Importers unsure whether an order touches their merchandise should resolve that question first, because scope is prior to everything else here. Companies with significant deposits on unliquidated entries may also want to review whether any duty recovery mechanisms apply alongside the review process, including duty drawback where exports are involved. A California customs attorney can help map the orders against your entry history before the cutoff.

This article is general information about a published Federal Register notice and is not legal advice. Deadlines, procedures and the orders covered change from year to year, and whether a review is advisable depends on facts specific to each importer and entry. No outcome is promised or guaranteed. Consult qualified counsel about your own situation.

Contact Trembach Law Firm at (818) 514-7680 for a confidential consultation.

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