United States Virgin Islands

Scope: the federal declaration duty when entering the United States from the U.S. Virgin Islands — not the local formalities for a person arriving INTO the USVI. Under 19 CFR 101.1, the customs territory of the United States includes only the States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico; the customs ports in the Virgin Islands, although under the jurisdiction of the Secretary of the Treasury, have their own customs laws (48 U.S.C. 1406(i)), are outside the customs territory of the United States, and are not "ports of entry" within the meaning of these regulations. Under 48 U.S.C. 1406i the Secretary of the Treasury designates the several ports and sub-ports of entry in the USVI and administers the customs laws there; no new export duties may be levied in the Virgin Islands except by the Congress. Declaration duty: under 19 CFR 148.11, all articles brought into the United States by any individual must be declared to a CBP officer at the port of first arrival in the United States, on a conveyance en route to the United States on which a CBP officer is assigned for that purpose, or at a preclearance office in a foreign country. This therefore governs travelers proceeding from the USVI to a U.S. State, the District of Columbia, or Puerto Rico, and must NOT be generalized to every person arriving in the USVI. Form of declaration: under 19 CFR 148.12, returning residents and nonresidents arriving in the United States may make an oral declaration only under the stated conditions — a returning resident if the aggregate fair retail value in the country of acquisition of all accompanying articles acquired abroad (and of alterations and dutiable repairs made abroad) does not exceed the applicable ceiling, which for a direct or indirect arrival from the USVI (as from American Samoa, Guam, or the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands) is $1,600, not more than $800 of which must have been acquired elsewhere than in such locations, and if none of his accompanying articles are forwarded in bond or imported for the account of another person or for sale; a nonresident if all articles to declare are entitled to free entry under personal exemptions or under the administrative exemption for articles not exceeding $200 in aggregate value (19 U.S.C. 1321(a)(2)(B)). Written declarations may be required generally or in respect to particular types of traffic at any port, and even where an oral declaration is permitted, completion of the identifying information on CBP Form 6059-B may be required. Under 19 CFR 148.13, unless an oral declaration is accepted under § 148.12, the declaration required of a person arriving in the United States must be in writing on Customs Form 6059-B; the declarant must list all articles acquired abroad in his possession at the time of arrival (with the price paid or fair retail value per article, subject to the stated itemization rules), and each written declaration must be acknowledged before the Customs officer who examines the baggage. Not covered — narrow unknowns kept open (VI-audit-2): local USVI entry forms, duty-free allowances, and cash-declaration rules for arrival into the USVI itself; this round's USDA APHIS Puerto Rico/USVI agriculture page (connection timeout) and CBP general-aviation-processing page (HTTP 403) could not be read and are recorded as failed fetches only — carrier/general-aviation preinspection and agricultural inspection are not treated as an independent passenger submission. The $1,600 figure is cited here only as the 148.12 oral-declaration value ceiling for returning residents arriving from the USVI; the separate duty-free allowance mechanics formerly asserted from 19 CFR 148.33–148.35 (30-day use limits, family grouping, 48-hour rule) are not in this batch's cached official texts and are not asserted.