Problem Checking Your PARS?

Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) introduced changes on March 5, 2017 affecting a carrier's ability to check the PARS status of their shipments on customs brokers websites.  This occurred because many customs brokers developed their PARS query functionality on the CBSA's Release Notification System “Declaration Accepted Awaiting Arrival of Goods” message which was automatically generated when their customs declaration was accepted.  Today this message is not generated until a carriers Automated Commercial Information (ACI) shipment declaration has been accepted by CBSA and matched to the importer / customs broker’s declaration based on the cargo control number.  Once the declarations are matched and CBSA completes the processing of the importer’s / customs broker’s declaration an RNS message will automatically sent out.

To address this issue some customs brokers have modified their websites to indicate when they have submitted their customs declaration to CBSA.  This will provide carriers with essentially a time stamp the declaration has been submitted yet it doesn’t necessarily confirm the declaration has been accepted.  CBSA along with other government departments and agencies may still have to completed their review and risk assessment of the specific shipment and once they all have completed their reviews and accepted the declaration a RNS "Declaration Accepted" message will be generated. 

Carriers should note that CBSA intends to sunset the RNS system (no date has been determined) and has created a new ACI messages designed to improve a carrier’s visibility.  Carriers will be able to use the ACI matched and entry linked to shipment messages to determine if a customs declaration has been submitted for a specific shipment prior to receiving the RNS "Declaration Accepted message".  Carriers who don’t have this capability may need to work with their service providers to obtain the ACI messages or can subscribe to our ACI eManifest service.