A corporate POA is executed by an officer with authority to bind the company, and it typically appoints the broker to act in all customs matters the document covers, sometimes with named limits, more often in broad standard language. That breadth is why the document deserves a read: sub agents, forwarding of the POA to correspondent brokers in other ports, and the duration until revoked are all set here, in a document most importers sign during onboarding between the credit application and the rate sheet.
Individual importers sign personally. Partnerships and LLCs have their own execution rules, and CBP and brokers apply them because a defectively executed POA can unwind the authority behind entries already filed. When the broker's onboarding team asks for a specific officer title or a corporate resolution, they are not being precious. They are building the file CBP will ask to see.
Brokers are expected to validate the POA: confirming the client exists, the signer holds the role they claim, and the document matches the business that will be the importer of record. Expect requests for business registration details, tax identifiers, and proof of the signer's authority, and expect revalidation when your company changes name, structure, or officers. A merger that renames the importer without touching the POA leaves entries being filed under authority granted by a company that no longer exists in that form.
Keep your own copy and know where it is. In a focused assessment, a ruling request, or a dispute over who authorised a filing position, the POA is an early exhibit. Importers who have to ask their broker whether they have one are telling the room something about their compliance file generally.
Revoke in writing when you change brokers. The old POA does not expire because you stopped calling. Until revoked, the authority stands, and two brokers holding live POAs for the same importer is how entries get filed by a firm you thought you had left, on instructions nobody at your company gave this year. One revocation letter, kept with the new POA, closes the hole.
Limit and name where it matters. If specific staff may give filing instructions, say so in your internal procedures and in your broker instructions, and align the POA's scope with how you actually operate: which ports, which modes, whether the broker may file post summary corrections and protests on your behalf or only on written instruction. The document can carry limits. What it cannot do is enforce limits nobody wrote down.
Reasonable care under the customs laws sits with the importer regardless of the broker's involvement, and the POA does not transfer it. Keep the surrounding records with the same care: the POA, revocations, broker instructions, classification decisions, and valuations, retained for the statutory periods. Confirm current requirements with your licensed customs broker, because the POA is one of those documents whose importance is invisible until the day it is the only document anyone wants to see.
Review the whole set once a year on a calendar reminder, the way you review insurance. Companies change officers, addresses, and brokers. The border file should say so before CBP discovers it independently.
No. A broker must hold a valid POA to transact customs business on an importer's behalf, and must validate it. A broker willing to skip that step is telling you how they handle every other requirement too.
Generally until revoked, subject to its own terms and specific rules for partnerships. That open ended life is exactly why written revocation when changing brokers matters.
An officer with legal authority to bind the company for a corporation, following the execution rules for your entity type. Your broker will specify what they need to validate the signature.
No. The broker acts as your agent. The importer of record keeps the reasonable care duty and the liability for duties and penalties, which is why the importer's own records and instructions matter as much as the broker's work.