What is AES?

The U.S. Census Bureau revised its regulations on April 5, 2014. One of the changes was that used self-propelled vehicles must be filed in the Automated Export System (AES) 72 hours prior to export, no matter the value or country of ultimate destination (including Canada).

This change became enforceable October 3, 2014.

AES is a joint venture between CBP, the Foreign Trade Division of the Bureau of the Census (Commerce), the Bureau of Industry and Security (Commerce), the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (State), other Federal agencies, and the export trade community. It is the central point through which export shipment data required by multiple agencies is filed electronically to Customs, using the efficiencies of Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). AES provides an alternative to filing paper Electronic Export Information (EEI). Export information is collected electronically and edited immediately, and errors are detected and corrected at the time of filing. AES is a nationwide system operational at all U.S. ports and for all methods of transportation. It was designed to assure compliance with and enforcement of laws relating to exporting, improve trade statistics, reduce duplicate reporting to multiple agencies, and improve customer service.

The export process begins when the exporter decides to export a self-propelled vehicle. Autoexports.us validates the data captured against editing tables and U.S. Government agency requirement files to generate a confirmation message or error message back to the filer. Any error messages generated by AES must be corrected and the corrections re-transmitted to AES.