A customs broker's fee buys the entry, and the entry is the document that decides everything else. The broker classifies the goods, values them, prepares the entry summary, files it with CBP, and answers CBP's questions when they come. The fee is usually a flat amount per entry, a few hundred dollars for a routine shipment, or a small percentage of the shipment value for larger ones. It is the smallest line on the entry, and it is the line that decides whether the shipment is profitable, because the fee is fixed while the shipment value is not. A 200 dollar fee on a 20,000 dollar shipment is one percent. The same fee on a 1,000 dollar shipment is twenty percent, and the margin is gone before the duty is calculated.
That arithmetic is why the de minimis suspension hit small importers hardest. When a parcel under 800 dollars cleared without an entry, there was no broker's fee. Now every parcel needs an entry, and the entry needs a broker or a self-filing, and the fee applies to every shipment, whatever its value. The importers who adapted consolidated shipments, because the fee is per entry, and ten small parcels entered separately pay the fee ten times, while one consolidated entry pays it once.
The fee does not cover the duties, the taxes, the merchandise processing fee, or the bond. Those are separate lines, billed separately, and the broker's invoice should show them separately, because a broker who bundles them is a broker whose fee is hard to check. The merchandise processing fee on a formal entry is 0.3464 percent of customs value, with a 34.58 dollar floor for fiscal year 2027, and it is a CBP charge, not a broker charge. The bond is a surety product, not a broker product, and the broker arranges it but does not set the premium.
The fee also does not cover the cost of a mistake in the entry. If the classification is wrong, the duty is wrong, and the correction is a post-entry amendment or a protest, both of which cost more than the original fee. If the valuation is wrong, the duty is wrong in the other direction, and CBP's penalty is the importer's, not the broker's, because liability for duties is a personal debt of the importer under 19 CFR 141.1. The broker prepares the entry. The importer owns it.
Put the broker's fee in the landed cost model as a fixed cost per entry, not as a percentage of the shipment value, because that is how it is billed, and a model that treats it as a percentage will understate the cost on small shipments and overstate it on large ones. Then divide it by the units in the shipment, and read the per-unit cost, because the per-unit cost is the number that decides whether the shipment is worth making. A shipment whose per-unit broker cost exceeds the per-unit margin is a shipment that should be consolidated with the next one, or not made at all.
And ask the broker what the fee includes before the shipment moves, in writing. A broker who will not put the fee in writing is a broker who plans to add to it, and the additions will appear on the invoice as disbursements, handling charges, or document fees, each small enough to ignore and large enough together to matter. The fee is the cheapest line on the entry and the easiest one to check, and checking it is the habit that keeps the rest of the entry honest. For the other fixed costs in the same model, the five landed cost models explains which model the quote is using, and currency swings in landed cost covers the line that moves after the quote is given.
The entry: classification, valuation, entry summary, and communication with CBP. It is usually a flat fee per entry, a few hundred dollars for a routine shipment. It does not cover duties, taxes, the merchandise processing fee, or the bond.
Because the fee is fixed while the shipment value is not. A 200 dollar fee on a 20,000 dollar shipment is one percent. The same fee on a 1,000 dollar shipment is twenty percent, and the margin is gone before the duty is calculated.
The importer. Liability for duties is a personal debt of the importer under 19 CFR 141.1. The broker prepares the entry, but the importer owns it, and a wrong classification or valuation is corrected by amendment or protest at the importer's cost.
As a fixed cost per entry, divided by the units in the shipment. A model that treats it as a percentage will understate the cost on small shipments and overstate it on large ones. The per-unit cost is the number that decides whether the shipment is worth making.