The customs authority
The body that controls goods entering and leaving, and before which every declaration is filed. It decides, audits and penalises.
Vocabulary
The same procedure, six names
What Colombia calls a levante, Brazil calls a desembaraço and Argentina a libramiento. Here is every concept in the operation with the name it carries in all six countries, so you can talk to suppliers, carriers and customers in each authority vocabulary.
Who signs the filing
The party legally licensed to file the declaration on the importer behalf. Across most of the region it is a regulated profession: without that licence, nobody clears goods.
The import declaration
The document stating what enters, where it comes from, what it is worth and what is owed. Everything else revolves around it: one wrong figure here carries through to the duty assessment, to the inspection channel, and to the audit three years from now.
Release of the goods
The act by which customs authorises the cargo to be collected. Until it happens the goods are yours but out of reach, and the warehouse keeps charging by the day.
The product code
Where the product sits in the tariff. It sets what you pay, what permits you need and which trade agreements you can use. The first six digits match across all six countries because all follow the Harmonized System; past that, each bloc goes its own way.
The inspection channel
The mechanism that decides, on filing, how much will be reviewed. It drives the days in storage and the final cost. Mexico is the only one of the six with no middle channel, and Brazil the only one with a fourth channel for suspected fraud.
The customs IT system
The platform where the declaration is filed and processed. Each country runs its own, with its own formats, outages and filing windows.
The single window
Where you file for the permits and clearances of the agencies that are not customs: health, agriculture, energy, defence. One missing permit here stops the whole declaration, however well prepared it is.
Where the cargo waits
The licensed facility where goods stay under customs control while clearance runs. This is where the clock ticks: every day there costs money.
The free trade zone
Territory with its own customs and tax treatment, where goods can be stored, processed or re-exported without being cleared for consumption. Used well, it changes the cost structure of an entire regional operation.
Importing in order to export
The regimes that suspend or refund duty when an imported input ends up inside a product that is exported. It is the saving most companies leave on the table simply because they do not know the procedure.
What you pay on import
The tariff plus the internal taxes assessed at the moment of import. Brazil is by far the most complex of the six: federal and state taxes stack on the same goods.
Terminology verified as of August 2026. Customs rules change; before you commit to a specific operation, confirm the applicable term with us.
Does any of this sound like a foreign language?
Tell us about the operation and we will translate it into practice: which document is filed, before whom, under what code and in how many days.