October 2023 — Question 9

Why this answer

Section 144.5 anchors the warehousing period to a single event: merchandise may not remain in a bonded warehouse beyond five years from the date of importation, subject only to a discretionary extension granted on good cause. The keyed answer is therefore the date of import. The date of entry is the natural wrong answer because most customs deadlines, such as liquidation, run from entry, but the warehousing clock deliberately starts at importation, so any time the goods spend in the country before the warehouse entry still counts against the five years; the entry summary and export dates are irrelevant to the computation. Watch for: Running the five-year warehouse clock from the entry date instead of the importation date.

Original CBLE Simulator explanation — the question and key above are CBP's; this analysis is ours. Verify against the current edition before relying on it in practice.