# How does the five year filing window work for duty drawback claims? | LandedSight

Source: https://landedsight.com/blog/2026-10-15-duty-drawback-five-year-filing-window/

Cross-border operations guide · October 15, 2026


Duty drawback claims must be filed within five years of the import date, and the window is unforgiving. Claims built at export time sail through. Claims reconstructed in year four compete with missing records and closed suppliers.

## The window and what starts it

The five year period runs from the import date of the duties you want back, not from the export date and not from when someone in finance discovered the program. A complete claim, with the required documents and data, must reach Customs within that period for the claim to be timely.

The trap is the word complete. A placeholder filing missing core evidence does not reliably stop the clock. Brands that calendar only the deadline and start gathering documents in the final quarter discover that supplier certificates, export proof, and entry data take longer to assemble than the remaining window allows.

## Why claims die in year four

Records age badly. Suppliers close or change systems, staff who ran the shipments leave, carrier proof of export gets harder to retrieve, and the five year customs recordkeeping clock is expiring on the same documents the claim needs. A claim started early uses fresh records. A claim started late is archaeology.

Eligibility also gets harder to prove with time. Matching imported lots to exported goods, especially under substitution rules, depends on inventory records that many systems overwrite or summarize as they age. The claim was valid when the goods shipped. Proving it four years later is a different and sometimes impossible job.

## Building claims at export time

The reliable programs treat drawback as part of the export workflow, not a later finance project. When goods ship out, the claim file opens: the export documents, the inventory link to the imported merchandise, and the duty data are captured while everything is current and the people involved still remember the shipment.

Filing rhythm follows from that. Monthly or quarterly claim cycles keep each filing small, current, and boring. Boring is the goal. A steady cadence also surfaces problems, a missing certificate type, a data mismatch, while they are cheap to fix, instead of inside one enormous claim at the deadline.

## Prioritizing a backlog by expiry, not size

Brands discovering drawback late usually hold a backlog spanning several years. Work it by expiry date, oldest import dates first, even when newer claims are larger or easier. A smaller claim filed inside its window is worth more than a larger claim perfected one day after its window closed.

Be honest about what the backlog can recover. Some early periods will lack the records to support a complete claim, and chasing them consumes the time that could save the periods behind them. Triage with the deadline map in front of you, document what was abandoned and why, and protect everything still inside the window.

## Keeping the window from ever pressuring you again

Put the five year dates in the system, not in a person's head. Every import entry that might support drawback should carry its claim deadline in the inventory or trade system, with alerts at twelve and six months out for any unclaimed amounts above a threshold worth filing.

Review the unclaimed report quarterly at the same meeting that reviews duty spend. Drawback left unfiled is a loan your business made to the government at zero interest with an expiry date. Treating it with the same seriousness as any other receivable is what separates programs that recover duty routinely from programs that recover it once, in a panic.

Keep reading: [How should brands document chain of custody for duty drawback claims?](https://landedsight.com/blog/2026-10-15-duty-drawback-chain-of-custody-documentation), [How does duty drawback work for goods destroyed under customs supervision?](https://landedsight.com/blog/2026-10-14-duty-drawback-destroyed-goods-customs-supervision), and [How do you track duty drawback eligibility across thousands of SKUs?](https://landedsight.com/blog/2026-10-13-track-duty-drawback-eligibility-across-skus) cover the nearby cases in this series.

## Frequently asked questions

## When does the five year drawback clock start?

From the import date of the merchandise whose duties are being claimed, not the export date. The complete claim must be filed within five years of that import date.

## What happens if a claim is filed after five years?

It is untimely and the refund is lost, regardless of how valid the underlying claim would have been. The window is a hard deadline, not a guideline.

## Why not file all claims once a year in one batch?

Batching delays risk: records age, suppliers become unreachable, and errors surface too late to fix. A monthly or quarterly cadence keeps claims current and problems cheap to correct.

## How should a company handle a multi year backlog?

Work it by expiry, oldest import dates first, and triage honestly. Protect every period still inside its window before perfecting newer or larger claims.