The U.S. Census Bureau’s Trade Regulations Branch regularly receives questions regarding who the Ultimate Consignee is in an export transaction. The questions become more complicated when an end user and the Ultimate Consignee are two different entities, and they reside in two different countries. The goal of Part I of this blog is to answer some of your frequently asked questions on the Ultimate Consignee and the end user based on the Foreign Trade Regulations (FTR).

FTR Section 30.1 defines the Ultimate Consignee as “the person, party, or designee that is located abroad and actually receives the export shipment. This party may be the end user or the Foreign Principal Party in Interest.”

FTR Section 30.6(a)(3) instructs the filer to “report in the Electronic Export Information (EEI) the Ultimate Consignee as known at the time of export. For shipments requiring an export license including shipments to international waters, the Ultimate Consignee reported in the Automated Export System (AES) shall be the person so designated on the export license or authorized to be the Ultimate Consignee under the applicable license exemption or exception in conformance with the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) or International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR), as applicable.”

Let’s look at a few practical examples involving reporting of the Ultimate Consignee:

1. The first and most common scenario occurs when the U.S. Principal Party in Interest (USPPI)/U.S. seller has one Foreign Principal Party in Interest (FPPI)/foreign buyer who is also the only company abroad actually receiving the goods for consumption.
   
   The FPPI/foreign buyer is the party located abroad actually receiving the goods for consumption. Therefore, that party is the Ultimate Consignee.
   
   
2. In this second scenario, the USPPI has knowledge of the FPPI/foreign buyer who is receiving the goods and is in the business of further distributing or reselling the goods to other parties. For competitive reasons, the FPPI/foreign buyer refuses to disclose its customers/end users to the USPPI, even upon request by the USPPI.
   
   It shows due diligence when the USPPI requests the name and address of the end user(s) from the FPPI/foreign buyer, but there is no guarantee that the FPPI/foreign buyer will disclose its customers. This is where the Ultimate Consignee Type becomes very important to the federal government. In this scenario, the AES filer reports reseller/distributor as the Ultimate Consignee Type because the USPPI has the knowledge of the FPPI/foreign buyer’s intent and business practice to resell/distribute the goods. Since there is only knowledge of the FPPI/foreign buyer receiving the goods, report the FPPI/foreign buyer as the Ultimate Consignee. 
   
   
3. In this third scenario, the FPPI/foreign buyer has disclosed the country of the end user(s) to the USPPI. Therefore, the USPPI has knowledge of the actual country of destination, but still does not know the name(s) of FPPI/foreign buyer’s customer(s). 

Since at the time of export there is only knowledge of the FPPI/foreign buyer who is receiving the goods, the USPPI reports the FPPI/foreign buyer as the Ultimate Consignee, reseller/distributor as the Ultimate Consignee Type, and the known country of the end user (the country of the FPPI/foreign buyer’s customer) as the Country of Ultimate Destination. 

In Part II of this blog, we’ll dive into a few more complex scenarios to provide greater clarity on defining and correctly reporting the Ultimate Consignee.

For more information regarding Ultimate Consignee, please refer to the FTR Sections 30.1 and 30.6(a)(3). For questions, please contact the Trade Regulations Branch at 1-800-549-0595, Option #3, or email <emd.askregs@census.gov>.