USDA/APHIS Beta-Testing New Agricultural Commodity Import Requirement Portal

Trade Update • APRIL 21, 2021

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently announced that its Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service has developed a new portal to simplify access to entry requirements for agricultural commodities imported into the United States.

APHIS’ new Agricultural Commodity Import Requirements online portal will provide users with a simple search interface to locate and display import requirements. Users can also check ACIR to see if they need to apply for a permit.

Additionally, APHIS’ eFile system for permit, license, and registration applications will utilize the ACIR import requirement data when processing plant and plant product permit applications.

Benefits

APHIS’ ACIR stakeholders benefits include:

• A user-friendly search tool for commodity import information
• All relevant import requirements for a given commodity are presented in one place.
• Self-service responses to entry requirement questions.

Beta-Testing Phase & Deployment Schedule

APHIS is currently beta-testing ACIR’s public portal starting with Plants and Plant Products Not for Propagation.

When fully implemented ACIR will include additional import requirements for Plants and Plant Products for Propagation, Animal Products and Byproducts, and other Miscellaneous and Processed Products articles.

Feedback

The USDA/APHIS is looking for feedback from the beta-test of the first active module in order to improve the user experience as they continue to develop the interface. This can be provided by stakeholders through either the ACIR feedback page or via e-mail.

Need More Information?

On its website, APHIS has posted a number of help videos that teach users how to navigate through the portal, access information, submit questions, and provide feedback.