A Reconocimiento Is Underway: The Acta, the Fork, and the Next Six Hours

At 7:40 on a Tuesday morning, an operations manager in Querétaro takes a call from the agencia aduanal in Nuevo Laredo. The container went red. The officer has the doors open and is counting cartons against the packing list, and one line does not agree.

What happens over the next few hours decides whether the file closes as a determination the company pays, or opens as an embargo precautorio, the precautionary seizure of the goods, with a procedure that can run four months before a definitive resolution.

Nothing in the Ley Aduanera sets a six hour clock. What the law sets is a sequence, two forks, and a small set of windows measured in days that only open if somebody does the right thing while the examination is still live. The six hours are ours. They are the stretch in which an operations team still has choices that cost nothing, before the choices start costing money. We clear more than 190,000 customs operations a year across 39+ ports, hold three Patentes Nacionales in Mexico alongside a US corporate customs brokerage license, and have worked this border for 122+ years. What follows is the sequence our clearance teams run, written for the person who will actually be on the phone.

Hour zero: what has already been decided

By the time anyone calls you, Article 43 has already run its sequence. The pedimento, Mexico's customs declaration, was prepared. Duties and, where applicable, trade remedy duties were paid. The goods were presented to the customs authority and the automated selection system was activated. It returned an affirmative result, and the authority now performs the examination in front of whoever presents the goods in the recinto fiscal.

Two consequences follow immediately, and both are easy to misjudge in the first phone call.

The first is that the amendment window is shut. Under Article 89, data in the pedimento may be amended before the automated selection system is activated. After activation, what would have been a correction becomes a finding. Any instinct to fix the paperwork now is not just useless, it is the wrong conversation.

The second is that the examination is no longer necessarily a single morning. Article 153-A, added to the Ley Aduanera by the decree published in the DOF on June 25, 2018, allows customs authorities to raise partial actas and a final acta when the verification concludes after the day it began. That flexibility carries a ceiling: the acts of verification may not extend beyond five days from their start, except for duly justified causes, and if the deadlines are not met the authority's actions are left without effect. Plan for a morning. Do not be surprised by a Thursday.

One more thing has already happened that most teams never see. Where the examination is carried out with the support of authorized private parties using non-intrusive technology, Article 43 provides that the dictaminadores aduaneros issue a dictamen aduanero on the analysis and interpretation of images, the content of which is presumed true, and which must be provided to the authorities immediately so the examination can continue. The image was read before the doors opened.

The two decisions that come before any decision about the cargo

The instinct is to talk about the goods. The law asks first about people and an address.

Article 43 puts the examination in front of whoever presents the goods. In practice that is the agencia aduanal's staff at the module, not the importer. That is normal and it is sufficient for the examination itself. It stops being sufficient the moment an acta is raised, because Article 150 then requires the authority to call on the interested party to designate two witnesses and to state a domicile for hearing and receiving notifications within the territorial circumscription of the authority competent to process and resolve the procedure.

Both requirements carry a penalty for silence. If witnesses are not designated, or those designated decline, the officer conducting the diligence designates them. If no domicile is stated, or one is stated that does not correspond to the interested party or its representative, notifications that would have been personal are instead made by estrados, which in the case of a reconocimiento requires the sign-off of the administrator of the aduana.

Read that the way an operator should. A company that has not decided in advance who its representative is and which address it uses in Nuevo Laredo, Manzanillo or Nogales has effectively delegated both decisions to the officer and to a notice board. Every deadline in the rest of this article runs from a notification. Losing control of where the notification lands is the most expensive thing that can happen in the first hour, and it happens quietly.

The authority that raises the acta must hand a copy of it to the interested party, and at that moment the acta is considered notified. That is when the clock starts, and everyone present should note the hour.

What the acta records, and why the wording outlives the day

Article 46 is the hinge. When customs authorities become aware of any irregularity, whether from the review of the electronic declarations and the electronic or digital documents transmitted, from the reconocimiento aduanero, from an inspection or from the verification of goods in transport, the irregularity is recorded in a document raised for that purpose, following the procedure that corresponds under Articles 150 to 153.

When the branch is a seizure, Article 150 states what that document must contain: the identification of the authority conducting the diligence, the facts and circumstances that motivate the start of the procedure, the description, nature and other characteristics of the goods, and the taking of samples under Article 45 where applicable, together with the other evidentiary elements needed to issue the resulting resolution.

That list looks procedural. It is arithmetic. The thresholds that decide the outcome are computed from the description the acta writes down. Article 151, fraction IV turns on undeclared or excess goods representing more than 10% of the total value declared in the customs documentation. Fraction VII turns on a declared value 50% or more below the transaction value of identical or similar goods determined under Articles 72 and 73. Whether the goods in the acta are described as one SKU or two, and which value is entered against them, is what the percentage is built from. Correct a wrong description while the officer is still writing, not four months later in a brief.

There is a second reason the record matters, and it runs in your favor. Article 153 gives full probative value to the information transmitted into the electronic customs system under Articles 36 and 36-A when the documents offered to prove legal stay or possession contain information that had to be transmitted. The file you sent before the truck moved is evidence. The acta is read against it.

Not every discrepancy is an irregularity, either, and it is worth saying so out loud at the module. Article 247 of the Reglamento de la Ley Aduanera provides that no infraction under Article 184, fraction III is incurred where discrepancies in the data on tariff classification or in the quantity declared for contributions derive from arithmetic or typographical errors, provided there is no harm to the fiscal interest.

If your team has never rehearsed who stands at the module, who signs, and which address is used at each port you clear through, that is a one afternoon exercise with a four month downside. Our compliance team runs it as a reconocimiento readiness review for importers operating across multiple ports. Talk to a Joffroy trade compliance expert.

The fork: a determination, or a seizure

Everything now depends on whether Article 151 applies.

If it does not, the branch is Article 152. Where a reconocimiento aduanero, a verification of goods in transport, the review of documents presented during clearance or the exercise of verification powers gives rise to the determination of omitted contributions, aprovechamientos and, where applicable, the imposition of sanctions, and Article 151 is not applicable, the authorities proceed to that determination without needing to substantiate the Article 150 procedure. The authority makes the facts or omissions known by written notice or acta circunstanciada, and that document must state that the interested party has ten business days from the day after the notification takes effect to offer evidence and formulate arguments. The authorities then issue a resolution within a term not exceeding four months from the day after the file is duly integrated, and if they do not issue it, they must immediately place the goods at the interested party's disposal. Where the goods are of difficult identification and require sampling to establish composition, use, process or physical characteristics, the facts or omissions are notified within six months of the sampling acta.

If Article 151 does apply, the goods are seized and the Article 150 procedure begins. Seven grounds trigger it: entry through an unauthorized place, or international transit deviating from fiscal routes, or internal transit moved by unauthorized means; goods of prohibited import or export, or subject to non-tariff regulations and restrictions whose compliance is not evidenced, or with trade remedy duties unpaid; failure to evidence with customs documentation that the goods went through the procedures for entry or for internación from the border strip, or that their stay or possession is lawful; undeclared or excess goods above the 10% threshold; cargo vehicles entering the recinto fiscal without the corresponding pedimento; a foreign supplier's name or address, or the importer's tax domicile, that is false, nonexistent or unlocatable; and the 50% undervaluation case, unless the Article 86-A guarantee has been given.

Three qualifiers on that list change what happens at the module. For the supplier identity and undervaluation grounds, the embargo requires an order issued by the competent customs authority for it to proceed during a reconocimiento. For Mexican official standards on commercial information, the embargo proceeds only where the failure is detected in a domiciliary visit or in the verification of goods in transport, not in a reconocimiento. And in the excess goods case, the rest of the shipment normally stays as security for the fiscal interest, except for maquiladoras and companies with export programs authorized by the Secretaría de Economía, where only the entirety of the excess is seized and the means of transport and correctly declared goods are released immediately.

Q: The officer says there is a difference and asks whether we agree. Do we sign?

Daniel Sánchez, Customs General Manager, Joffroy

A: Signing the acta and consenting to its content are two different acts, and people confuse them under pressure. Whoever attends signs to acknowledge the diligence and should read the description and the figures line by line before doing it, because that description is what the percentages are calculated from. Consent is a separate written statement with its own ten day window and its own consequences, and it is a decision for the importer, not for whoever happens to be standing at the module.

Q: What is the single most common mistake you see in the first hour?

Daniel Sánchez, Customs General Manager, Joffroy

A: Improvising the address. Teams answer the domicile question with whatever address is on the invoice, and then a notification lands somewhere nobody reads and ten business days pass. The address should be decided once, per port, and written into the operating procedure long before a container goes red.

Three doors out, and the clock on each

An embargo precautorio is not the end of the file. Three paths close it early, and each has a window that only counts business days.

The first is the junta técnica consultiva. Where the seizure arises from inexact tariff classification, Article 150 allows the interested party to offer, within the ten business day window, a technical consultative meeting to define whether the classification declared in the pedimento is correct. It must be held within the three business days following the offer. If the classification declared is correct, the authority that started the procedure orders the lifting of the embargo and the delivery of the goods. The article states that this does not constitute an instancia, which means offering it costs no defensive ground.

The second is evidence that disproves. Under Article 153, where the interested party presents documentary evidence proving the lawful stay or possession of the goods, or disproving the grounds on which they were seized, or proving that the declared value was determined in accordance with the valuation provisions in the undervaluation case, the authority that raised the acta issues the resolution immediately, no sanctions are imposed, and any seized goods are ordered returned.

The third is consent plus payment. Where excess or undeclared goods above 10% are detected and no other ground for seizure applies, and separately for excess or undeclared goods seized from maquiladoras and companies with export programs authorized by the Secretaría de Economía, Article 153 allows the interested party to file a written statement of consent with the content of the acta within ten days. The authority may then issue a provisional resolution determining the omitted contributions, trade remedy duties and applicable sanctions. If within five days of that notification the party evidences payment of the contributions, accessories and fines and, in the maquiladora case, compliance with non-tariff regulations and restrictions, the authority orders the goods returned.

Alongside all three sits substitution. Article 154 permits the embargo to be replaced by the guarantees established in the Código Fiscal de la Federación, except in the cases where goods pass to federal property. In the undervaluation case the substitution can only be made by deposit into a cuenta aduanera de garantía under Article 86-A, fraction I, and where the goods are not subject to precios estimados the deposit may equal the contributions and trade remedy duties that would accrue on the difference between the declared value and the transaction value of identical or similar goods. Separately, where the party complies with the non-tariff regulations and restrictions within thirty days of notification of the acta de inicio, substitution may be authorized.

One deadline moved in 2026. The decree published in the DOF on November 19, 2025, in force since January 1, added a paragraph to Article 153 under which the four month term is suspended when one of the situations in Article 46-A, second paragraph of the Código Fiscal de la Federación applies, with the authority obliged to notify the taxpayer of the suspension and reactivation dates. Calendar the reactivation date, not the original one.

What to have ready before the phone rings

None of the above is improvisable at 7:40 in the morning. Five items convert the response from a discussion into a lookup.

1. A named representative per port with written authority, and a named alternate, so the question of who attends is already answered.
2. A standing domicile for notifications inside the territorial circumscription of each aduana you clear through, recorded in the operating procedure and checked annually.
3. The Article 59 electronic file for the operation retrievable in under an hour, because Article 153 gives full probative value to what was transmitted and the fastest defense is the file you already sent.
4. A classification defense pack per product: the consultation formulated under Article 47 if one exists, the technical sheet, and the reasoning, so a junta técnica consultiva can be offered the same day rather than researched.
5. A pre-authorized guarantee rule stating who can authorize a deposit into a cuenta aduanera de garantía and up to what amount, agreed with finance before the day it is needed.

In our work with importers across the corridor, the difference between a file that closes in ten days and one that runs four months is almost never the seriousness of the discrepancy. It is whether these five things existed before the container went red.

The first hour after it closes, whichever way it went

If the examination ends clean, Article 43 provides that the goods are delivered immediately. Record the result and move on, but do not file it as vindication. The same article is explicit that the reconocimiento aduanero does not limit the verification powers of the customs authorities, and that where the authorities do not object to the value of the goods or to the documents supporting it at the time of clearance, this is not to be understood as acceptance of the declared value or as a resolution in the importer's favor. A green result closes a morning. It settles nothing.

If an acta was raised, three things happen in the first hour. Someone records the exact time the copy was handed over, because that is the notification. Someone reads the description and the figures against the file, because that is what the ten day response will contest or concede. And someone decides, that day, which of the three doors the company is walking through, because two of them close in ten business days and the third depends on a meeting that has to be held within three.

Then the part almost nobody does. Take the discrepancy back into master data and fix the thing that produced it, so the next examination of the same product reads differently. The examination tests the declaration. The declaration is a document your own systems wrote.

TRADE. UNDER CONTROL.