The CF-28 Handbook- paperback

The envelope looks routine. The clock says otherwise.

Every year U.S. Customs sends importers a two-page form that looks like nothing — CBP Form 28, a "Request for Information." Most companies forward it to their broker with a note to "send Customs whatever they need." Months later, some are staring at a six-figure rate advance, a penalty notice, or an audit that has spread across five years of entries. The form was never the problem. Misreading it was.

The CF-28 Handbook is the field guide no importer should be without. In plain language it decodes the form box by box, starts the 30-day clock from the right date, and gives you the exact response strategy for every kind of inquiry — tariff classification, customs valuation, country of origin, and the high-stakes cases that hide behind a "routine" request.

Inside this field manual:

- Decode a CF-28 box by box — and start the clock from the date that actually counts.

- Run a 30-day triage engine: legal hold, five-year exposure model, and a surgical, evidence-backed response.

- Work response playbooks for classification, valuation, and country-of-origin inquiries, with ready-to-use letter templates.

- Know when to file a prior disclosure — and how it can cap penalties to interest.

- Spot the early precursors to forced-labor (UFLPA), antidumping/countervailing-duty evasion, and False Claims Act exposure before they become investigations.

- Navigate the 2025–2026 shake-ups: the end of Section 321 de minimis, higher Section 301/232 stacks, and automated enforcement.

Built from real enforcement cases and current customs law — with checklists, worked examples, and copy-ready templates — this is the difference between the companies that come out clean and the ones that do not.

Written by James R. Ferry II (CCS, CES, CIT), a global trade-compliance consultant with 25 years in the field.