B2B cruise and declarations

We are booked on the reflection for a B2B at the end of January. The question we have is for customs declaration. Do we get to take the maximum allowable for each leg of the trip? I.e. Tobacco and liquor maximums for each leg. Because they re booked separately and you clear customs on each leg, it would seem to me we mean declare the max on each leg of the trip. Looking for info from any previous B2B cruisers that took advantage of allowable duty free.

I might be mistaken but I think the allowances take into consideration the length of time you have been out of the country so that would prevent you from bringing in twice as much on your B2B cruise. We don't bring in tobacco and since we have to fly from the port don't really buy much in the way of liquor.

We've been told that you can't declare until you are actually taking it off the ship with you.

Correct, you only declare things which are entering the U.S. for most people that means that the first declaration would show zero dollars, and only the last declaration shows the things you are bringing into the U.S.

A small exception would be if you have parked your car at the port, so on the first declaration you might put down something you will take out to the parking lot and put in the trunk of your car. In that case, you would not declare it on the second form since it is already in the US.

If you are arriving back to the USA on the first cruise then you will turn in a customs form and the same is true for the second cruise. Technically you need to list on each respective form what you purchased on each trip.

However, technically you cannot claim a duty free exemption more than once in 30 days.

The reality is customs will likely never pick up on the fact if you listed items on both forms but I am just noting what the process and what the regulations are.

Keith

US Customs has a limitation that you are only allowed the total duty free allowance over a period of 30 days. In other words you could have the full amount once in a 30 day period or a total accumulation of the full limit over multiple entries.

https://help.cbp.gov/app/answers/detail/a_id/246/~/duty--free-exemption