US Customs Declaration Guide 2026: Form 6059B and MPC App

The Customs Declaration at a Glance

The declaration is a legal statement about what you are bringing into the United States. Completing it accurately protects you, and the digital routes now make it faster than the old paper process.

Completing CBP Form 6059B

CBP Form 6059B is the official customs declaration form, and a fillable version is published by Customs and Border Protection. If you are completing the paper version, typically handed out during your flight, the form asks for your identifying details, your flight information, and a series of declarations.

The personal section asks for your name, date of birth, passport number and country of issuance, plus the airline and flight number you arrived on. You then declare whether you are residents or visitors, which matters because the two categories carry different duty-free exemptions. You declare how many family members are travelling on the same passport, since a household can combine its exemptions.

The goods section asks you to state the total value of all goods you are bringing, including gifts and items purchased abroad, across several categories such as commercial samples, items for sale, and all other items. You then answer a set of yes or no questions, the most consequential of which concerns agricultural products, along with questions about currency, whether you have been in contact with farm animals, and whether you are bringing anything restricted.

Finally you sign and date the declaration. An unsigned or inaccurate declaration is a problem in itself, so check the numbers against your receipts before you submit, and be honest about the value of what you are carrying.

The MPC App and APC Kiosks

Customs and Border Protection now offers two digital alternatives to the paper form, both free.

The Mobile Passport Control app, commonly shortened to MPC, lets you submit your customs declaration electronically before you reach the processing area. It is free, it can cover groups of up to twelve travellers, and it is available at a growing list of ports, including dozens of major US international airports as well as preclearance locations. The key timing rule is that you may submit your information up to four hours before landing, so you can complete it during the descent rather than queuing to use a paper form. When you arrive you follow the dedicated MPC lane, and you do not need to file the paper form.

The Automated Passport Control kiosks, or APC, are the touchscreen booths found in many US arrival halls. They are free, require no pre-registration or app, and they replace the paper declaration. You scan your passport, answer the customs questions on the screen, and keep the printed receipt to show an officer. Because they need no setup at all, APC kiosks are the easiest option for a traveller who does not want to install anything before a trip.

Duty-Free Exemptions

A duty-free exemption is the value of goods you may bring into the United States without paying duty. The headline figure most travellers know is $800, which applies to returning residents. Visitors receive a smaller $100 exemption. Travellers arriving from US insular possessions receive a larger $1,600 exemption.

Beyond the general value limit, specific allowances apply to common purchases. Travellers aged 21 or older may bring in one litre of alcohol duty-free, and the tobacco allowance covers 200 cigarettes and 100 cigars, subject to the rules set out in federal regulations. Anything above the applicable exemption is dutiable, meaning you owe duty on the excess value, which is assessed at the border rather than being a penalty.

Two practical points are worth noting. Household members travelling together can sometimes combine their exemptions, so a family arriving together is not automatically limited to a single $800 figure. And gifts bought abroad count toward your declared value, so a collection of small purchases that individually look trivial can add up past the exemption once totalled.

Declaring Food and Agriculture

Customs takes agricultural protection seriously, because pests and diseases entering the country on food and plant products pose a genuine biosecurity risk. The relevant declaration appears on Form 6059B, and the requirement is to declare all food and agricultural products you are carrying.

Commonly seized or restricted items include meats, fresh fruits and vegetables, plants, seeds and soil. Many of these are prohibited outright, while others may be admissible with inspection or treatment. The critical point is that the declaration is about honesty, not about guessing. You are not expected to be an expert on which specific products are permitted. You are expected to say on the form that you have food or agricultural items, and let the officer decide.

The consequences of failing to declare are concrete. If agricultural products are discovered undeclared, they are seized, and a civil penalty applies, with a first offence around $300, a second around $500, and repeated or larger violations reaching $1,000 for non-commercial quantities. Declaring the same items truthfully avoids that outcome entirely.

Currency and Monetary Instruments

There is no legal limit on how much currency or monetary instruments you may bring into the United States. What there is, is a reporting requirement. If you are carrying more than $10,000 in aggregate across currency, traveller's cheques, money orders and similar monetary instruments, you must report it.

That reporting is made on FinCEN Form 105, which is filed with Customs and Border Protection. The obligation is aggregate, meaning it covers the total across all travellers in a group and all forms of monetary instrument, not just paper notes in one wallet. Splitting a large sum among family members in an effort to stay under the threshold does not work, because the combined amount is what counts.

The penalties for failing to report are severe, and they are criminal rather than merely administrative. Undeclared currency can face civil penalties up to $500,000, potential imprisonment of up to ten years, and seizure of the funds, under the federal statutes governing currency reporting. Reporting is free and takes minutes, which makes concealing a large sum an extraordinarily poor trade.

Prohibited and Restricted Items, and Why Declaration Matters

Customs distinguishes sharply between an item that is declared and the same item being concealed, and that distinction is the most valuable thing to understand about the whole process.

If you declare a prohibited or restricted item truthfully, the normal outcome is that it is abandoned or seized, with no penalty imposed. Customs has publicly described cases where a traveller who truthfully declared an item was not issued a penalty, precisely because the declaration was honest. The item itself may be lost to you, but the encounter ends there.

If you conceal the same item and it is discovered during inspection, the calculus changes completely. Penalties apply, they escalate with repeats, and the discovery taints the whole declaration rather than being treated as an isolated mistake. This asymmetry is why the universal advice from Customs is to declare everything, even when you suspect the item might be refused. A truthful declaration of a prohibited item is a minor inconvenience. A concealed prohibited item is a serious problem.

Restricted items that commonly trip up returning travellers include certain food products, agricultural goods, and items subject to intellectual property protections or country-specific sanctions. If you are unsure about something you bought abroad, declare it and let the officer make the call.

What Happens If You Under-Declare

Under-declaring is treated as a separate matter from simply owing duty, and the distinction matters. An honest mistake that is corrected when the officer asks usually results in duty being assessed at the counter. A declaration that is found to be false after questioning is handled differently, because the issue is no longer the money but the accuracy of the statement you signed.

The practical consequences scale with value and with repetition. CBP can assess duty and penalties, retain the goods, and in serious cases record the matter in a way that affects future entries into the United States. For a traveller with Global Entry or a pending immigration application, an undeclared item of modest value is a disproportionately poor trade, because the record outlasts the item by years.

The reliable approach is to declare anything you are unsure about and let the officer decide. Declaring an item that turns out to be exempt costs nothing. Failing to declare an item that turns out to be dutiable creates a problem that cannot be undone at the counter.

Frequently Asked Questions