With a wealthy and well-armed population, America has an appetite for firearms. Many businesses can take advantage of this demand by importing gun parts and accessories into the U.S. Before embarking on this journey though, there are many import regulations and details to consider.
The first step in importing gun parts and accessories into the U.S. is to be in total compliance with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). You’ll also have to concern yourself with getting the shipment through U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP).
Many importers choose to work side by side with a customs broker to safely import their gun parts and accessories. USA Customs Clearance offers customs consulting services and more to help you import these regulated products.
Work with a specialist to make importing and exporting to the USA a hassle-free process.
Our comprehensive guide below provides you with everything you need to know when importing gun parts and accessories to the U.S.
The Second Amendment protects the rights of Americans to bear arms, but the financial impact certainly doesn’t hurt either. Domestically alone, the industry was worth tens of billions of dollars. With people’s desire to protect themselves and possessions not appearing to wane anytime soon, offering quality products in the retail space can be quite lucrative.
This proclivity for personal protections includes firearms themselves, ammunition and, yes, gun parts and accessories. With America’s fondness for firearms, importing gun parts and accessories and profiting from it shouldn’t be a difficult endeavor.
Some examples of parts include:
Somes examples of accessories include:
Guns are fully customizable, both for function and form, so there is a huge market to bring parts and accessories to the American public. In fact, the U.S. is the only country in the world that has more civilian firearms than people (120.5 firearms per 100 people).
The ATF governs the rules and regulations of anything related to guns in America on a federal level. The organization is also in place to make sure that all of the entities under its jurisdiction — including firearms — operate legally and are also not tied to organized crime in any way at all. Those kinds of shipments won’t fly at all, and are often heavily persecuted.
You will be legally bound to fill out and file ATF Form 6 for any firearms, ammunition or defense articles — which parts and accessories would fall under — in order to import any of the aforementioned into the United States. The form is used to have your information and that of what you’re importing on record.
The form itself needs to be filled out in great detail and with complete accuracy. Having a competent customs broker to help you with all of the necessary paperwork is extremely helpful.
When you utilize customs brokerage services through USA Customs Clearance, we manage every step of the process for you. You won’t have to worry about your freight getting stuck in customs or another importing roadblocks.
Speaking of being wrapped up in minutiae, the CBP requires its own paperwork to fill out. The CBP is also a real stickler when it comes out to said paperwork being filled out to completion and with no inaccuracies.
This form for the CBP has to be completed, submitted and approved before you can import a single gun part. Then suitable transportation has to be secured, most likely via an ocean freighter if the gun parts are coming from anywhere other than Canada or Mexico.
Finally, once the shipment reaches a U.S. port or border, someone has to be there to claim it and go through a final level of clearance before it is released.
All of this is time-consuming and difficult, which is why using a customs clearance broker can be an intelligent use of money. An experienced customs clearance broker can work in concert with you to methodically and accurately get these tough tasks done in a timely manner.
When importing your gun parts and accessories, you will be responsible to pay duties and taxes to the U.S. government to do so. When shipping large quantities of merchandise across U.S. borders, you could be on the hook for thousands of dollars in taxes at a time.
To make sure that the U.S. government gets its money, it requires importers to have a customs bond (also known as a surety bond). This bond, which costs a few hundred dollars per year, is an insurance policy the importer buys to make sure the government is able to collect those duties, either from you or the insurer who issues the bond. This goes for any order with a value of more than $2,500 and/or is overseen by a U.S. regulatory agency (in this case, the ATF).
So the simple answer is yes, you will require a customs bond to import gun parts and accessories into the country. Working with an efficient customs broker like USA Customs Clearance means a customs bond can be purchased immediately. We make the process simple and convenient with approval for your bond in as little as one day.
Go ahead and buy a customs bond today
Now that you’ve learned about the basics of what it would take to begin importing gun parts and accessories, we’re ready to help you. Our import consulting services are specially designed to provide you with just the right amount of support that you need to import your goods.
Over the course of 30 minutes, you will receive a 1-on-1 session with an imports customs expert that can explain various aspects of the process to you in easy-to-understand terms that will empower you to begin moving your shipments more easily into America. For an additional cost, you can upgrade your session to speak with a CBP-licensed customs broker for a deeper dive.
USA Customs Clearance can also help you secure a customs bond for a reasonable price and also have it set up to renew automatically each year so that your importing business is seamless and sees nary a delay because of an expired bond.
Outside of a bond and consultation, USA Customs Clearance has strategic partnerships that allow us to also offer you transportation options, warehousing for your goods and even fulfillment and distribution for your valuable freight.
To get started today on importing gun parts and accessories into the U.S., give us a call at 855.912.0406 to see the benefits of having us give you a hand with your important freight.
Work with a specialist to make importing and exporting to the USA a hassle-free process.