Customs Brokers
13-1041.08
Updated 2026

Prepare customs documentation and ensure that shipments meet all applicable laws to facilitate the import and export of goods. Determine and track duties and taxes payable and process payments on behalf of client. Sign documents under a power of attorney. Represent clients in meetings with customs officials and apply for duty refunds and tariff reclassifications. Coordinate transportation and storage of imported goods.

Sample of reported job titles: Broker, CCS (Certified Customs Specialist), Corporate Licensed Broker, LCB (Licensed Custom Broker), LCB (Licensed Customs Broker)

Occupation-Specific Information

Tasks

  • Pay, or arrange for payment of, taxes and duties on shipments.
  • Classify goods according to tariff coding system.
  • Clear goods through customs and to their destinations for clients.
  • Prepare and process import and export documentation according to customs regulations, laws, or procedures.
  • Stay abreast of changes in import or export laws or regulations by reading current literature, attending meetings or conferences, or conferring with colleagues.
  • Calculate duty and tariff payments owed on shipments.
  • Confer with officials in various agencies to facilitate clearance of goods through customs and quarantine.
  • Obtain line releases for frequent shippers of low-risk commodities, high-volume entries, or multiple-container loads.
  • Request or compile necessary import documentation, such as customs invoices, certificates of origin, and cargo-control documents.
  • Advise customers on import and export restrictions, tariff systems, insurance requirements, quotas, or other customs-related matters.
  • Sign documents on behalf of clients, using powers of attorney.
  • Post bonds for the products being imported or assist clients in obtaining bonds.
  • Prepare papers for shippers to appeal duty charges.
  • Quote duty and tax rates on goods to be imported, based on federal tariffs and excise taxes.
  • Inform importers and exporters of steps to reduce duties and taxes.
  • Arrange for transportation, warehousing, or product distribution of imported or exported products.
  • Apply for tariff concessions or for duty drawbacks and other refunds.
  • Contract with freight forwarders for destination services.
  • Monitor or trace the location of goods.
  • Suggest best methods of packaging or labeling products.
  • Provide advice on transportation options, types of carriers, or shipping routes.
  • Insure cargo against loss, damage, or pilferage.
  • Maintain relationships with customs brokers in other ports to expedite clearing of cargo.
  • Submit data for reporting to government agencies.
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Occupational Requirements

Work Activities

  • Getting Information — Observing, receiving, and otherwise obtaining information from all relevant sources.
  • Processing Information — Compiling, coding, categorizing, calculating, tabulating, auditing, or verifying information or data.
  • Working with Computers — Using computers and computer systems (including hardware and software) to program, write software, set up functions, enter data, or process information.
  • Evaluating Information to Determine Compliance with Standards — Using relevant information and individual judgment to determine whether events or processes comply with laws, regulations, or standards.
  • Updating and Using Relevant Knowledge — Keeping up-to-date technically and applying new knowledge to your job.
  • Documenting/Recording Information — Entering, transcribing, recording, storing, or maintaining information in written or electronic/magnetic form.
  • Making Decisions and Solving Problems — Analyzing information and evaluating results to choose the best solution and solve problems.
  • Providing Consultation and Advice to Others — Providing guidance and expert advice to management or other groups on technical, systems-, or process-related topics.
  • Communicating with People Outside the Organization — Communicating with people outside the organization, representing the organization to customers, the public, government, and other external sources. This information can be exchanged in person, in writing, or by telephone or e-mail.
  • Interpreting the Meaning of Information for Others — Translating or explaining what information means and how it can be used.
  • Organizing, Planning, and Prioritizing Work — Developing specific goals and plans to prioritize, organize, and accomplish your work.
  • Communicating with Supervisors, Peers, or Subordinates — Providing information to supervisors, co-workers, and subordinates by telephone, in written form, e-mail, or in person.
  • Establishing and Maintaining Interpersonal Relationships — Developing constructive and cooperative working relationships with others, and maintaining them over time.
  • Analyzing Data or Information — Identifying the underlying principles, reasons, or facts of information by breaking down information or data into separate parts.
  • Identifying Objects, Actions, and Events — Identifying information by categorizing, estimating, recognizing differences or similarities, and detecting changes in circumstances or events.
  • Training and Teaching Others — Identifying the educational needs of others, developing formal educational or training programs or classes, and teaching or instructing others.
  • Performing Administrative Activities — Performing day-to-day administrative tasks such as maintaining information files and processing paperwork.
  • Coaching and Developing Others — Identifying the developmental needs of others and coaching, mentoring, or otherwise helping others to improve their knowledge or skills.
  • Guiding, Directing, and Motivating Subordinates — Providing guidance and direction to subordinates, including setting performance standards and monitoring performance.
  • Coordinating the Work and Activities of Others — Getting members of a group to work together to accomplish tasks.
  • Resolving Conflicts and Negotiating with Others — Handling complaints, settling disputes, and resolving grievances and conflicts, or otherwise negotiating with others.
  • Monitoring Processes, Materials, or Surroundings — Monitoring and reviewing information from materials, events, or the environment, to detect or assess problems.
  • Developing and Building Teams — Encouraging and building mutual trust, respect, and cooperation among team members.
  • Developing Objectives and Strategies — Establishing long-range objectives and specifying the strategies and actions to achieve them.
  • Judging the Qualities of Objects, Services, or People — Assessing the value, importance, or quality of things or people.
  • Scheduling Work and Activities — Scheduling events, programs, and activities, as well as the work of others.
  • Estimating the Quantifiable Characteristics of Products, Events, or Information — Estimating sizes, distances, and quantities; or determining time, costs, resources, or materials needed to perform a work activity.

Detailed Work Activities

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Work Context

  • E-Mail — 100% responded “Every day.”
  • Telephone Conversations — 100% responded “Every day.”
  • Time Pressure — 85% responded “Every day.”
  • Spend Time Sitting — 85% responded “Continually or almost continually.”
  • Importance of Being Exact or Accurate — 80% responded “Extremely important.”
  • Contact With Others — 75% responded “Constant contact with others.”
  • Face-to-Face Discussions with Individuals and Within Teams — 68% responded “Every day.”
  • Indoors, Environmentally Controlled — 85% responded “Every day.”
  • Deal With External Customers or the Public in General — 55% responded “Extremely important.”
  • Work With or Contribute to a Work Group or Team — 60% responded “Extremely important.”
  • Importance of Repeating Same Tasks — 70% responded “Extremely important.”
  • Frequency of Decision Making — 70% responded “Every day.”
  • Written Letters and Memos — 47% responded “Every day.”
  • Impact of Decisions on Co-workers or Company Results — 50% responded “Very important results.”
  • Duration of Typical Work Week — 53% responded “More than 40 hours.”
  • Freedom to Make Decisions — 50% responded “Some freedom.”
  • Level of Competition — 37% responded “Highly competitive.”
  • Spend Time Making Repetitive Motions — 50% responded “Continually or almost continually.”
  • Coordinate or Lead Others in Accomplishing Work Activities — 37% responded “Important.”
  • Determine Tasks, Priorities and Goals — 40% responded “Limited freedom.”
  • Work Outcomes and Results of Other Workers — 30% responded “High responsibility.”
  • Consequence of Error — 30% responded “Serious.”
  • Dealing With Unpleasant, Angry, or Discourteous People — 40% responded “Once a week or more but not every day.”
  • Degree of Automation — 40% responded “Highly automated.”

Experience Requirements

Job Zone

Title
Job Zone Three: Medium Preparation Needed
Education
Most occupations in this zone require training in vocational schools, related on-the-job experience, or an associate's degree.
Related Experience
Previous work-related skill, knowledge, or experience is required for these occupations. For example, an electrician must have completed three or four years of apprenticeship or several years of vocational training, and often must have passed a licensing exam, in order to perform the job.
Job Training
Employees in these occupations usually need one or two years of training involving both on-the-job experience and informal training with experienced workers. A recognized apprenticeship program may be associated with these occupations.
Job Zone Examples
These occupations usually involve using communication and organizational skills to coordinate, supervise, manage, or train others to accomplish goals. Examples include hydroelectric production managers, desktop publishers, electricians, agricultural technicians, barbers, court reporters and simultaneous captioners, and medical assistants.
SVP Range
(6.0 to < 7.0)

Training & Credentials

State training
Local training
Certifications
Find certifications nationwide

Apprenticeship Opportunities

Example apprenticeship titles for this occupation:

  • Operations Assistant

Specific title(s) listed above are vetted by industry and approved by the U.S. Department of Labor for use in a Registered Apprenticeship Program.

Start your career and build your skillset. Visit Apprenticeship.gov to learn about opportunities related to this occupation.

Worker Requirements

Software Skills

Hot Technologies are requirements most frequently included across all employer job postings.
In Demand skills are frequently included in employer job postings for this occupation.

Essential Skills

  • Active Listening — Giving full attention to what other people are saying, taking time to understand the points being made, asking questions as appropriate, and not interrupting at inappropriate times.
  • Reading Comprehension — Understanding written sentences and paragraphs in work-related documents.
  • Speaking — Talking to others to convey information effectively.
  • Critical Thinking — Using logic and reasoning to identify the strengths and weaknesses of alternative solutions, conclusions, or approaches to problems.
  • Writing — Communicating effectively in writing as appropriate for the needs of the audience.
  • Active Learning — Understanding the implications of new information for both current and future problem-solving and decision-making.
  • Monitoring — Monitoring/Assessing performance of yourself, other individuals, or organizations to make improvements or take corrective action.
  • Learning Strategies — Selecting and using training/instructional methods and procedures appropriate for the situation when learning or teaching new things.

Transferable Skills

  • Complex Problem Solving — Identifying complex problems and reviewing related information to develop and evaluate options and implement solutions.
  • Judgment and Decision Making — Considering the relative costs and benefits of potential actions to choose the most appropriate one.
  • Time Management — Managing one's own time and the time of others.
  • Coordination — Adjusting actions in relation to others' actions.
  • Negotiation — Bringing others together and trying to reconcile differences.
  • Persuasion — Persuading others to change their minds or behavior.
  • Service Orientation — Actively looking for ways to help people.
  • Systems Analysis — Determining how a system should work and how changes in conditions, operations, and the environment will affect outcomes.
  • Systems Evaluation — Identifying measures or indicators of system performance and the actions needed to improve or correct performance, relative to the goals of the system.

Knowledge

  • Law and Government — Knowledge of laws, legal codes, court procedures, precedents, government regulations, executive orders, agency rules, and the democratic political process.
  • Administrative — Knowledge of administrative and office procedures and systems such as word processing, managing files and records, stenography and transcription, designing forms, and workplace terminology.
  • Customer and Personal Service — Knowledge of principles and processes for providing customer and personal services. This includes customer needs assessment, meeting quality standards for services, and evaluation of customer satisfaction.
  • English Language — Knowledge of the structure and content of the English language including the meaning and spelling of words, and rules of composition and grammar.
  • Transportation — Knowledge of principles and methods for moving people or goods by air, rail, sea, or road, including the relative costs and benefits.
  • Administration and Management — Knowledge of business and management principles involved in strategic planning, resource allocation, human resources modeling, leadership technique, production methods, and coordination of people and resources.
  • Computers and Electronics — Knowledge of circuit boards, processors, chips, electronic equipment, and computer hardware and software, including applications and programming.
  • Economics and Accounting — Knowledge of economic and accounting principles and practices, the financial markets, banking, and the analysis and reporting of financial data.
  • Education and Training — Knowledge of principles and methods for curriculum and training design, teaching and instruction for individuals and groups, and the measurement of training effects.
  • Mathematics — Knowledge of arithmetic, algebra, geometry, calculus, statistics, and their applications.

Education

How much education does a new hire need to perform a job in this occupation? Respondents said:

  • 35%
     
    Bachelor’s degree required
  • 30%
     
    High school diploma or equivalent required
  • 15%
     
    Post-secondary certificate required

Worker Characteristics

Abilities

  • Deductive Reasoning — The ability to apply general rules to specific problems to produce answers that make sense.
  • Oral Comprehension — The ability to listen to and understand information and ideas presented through spoken words and sentences.
  • Oral Expression — The ability to communicate information and ideas in speaking so others will understand.
  • Written Comprehension — The ability to read and understand information and ideas presented in writing.
  • Written Expression — The ability to communicate information and ideas in writing so others will understand.
  • Near Vision — The ability to see details at close range (within a few feet of the observer).
  • Information Ordering — The ability to arrange things or actions in a certain order or pattern according to a specific rule or set of rules (e.g., patterns of numbers, letters, words, pictures, mathematical operations).
  • Speech Clarity — The ability to speak clearly so others can understand you.
  • Category Flexibility — The ability to generate or use different sets of rules for combining or grouping things in different ways.
  • Speech Recognition — The ability to identify and understand the speech of another person.
  • Inductive Reasoning — The ability to combine pieces of information to form general rules or conclusions (includes finding a relationship among seemingly unrelated events).
  • Problem Sensitivity — The ability to tell when something is wrong or is likely to go wrong. It does not involve solving the problem, only recognizing that there is a problem.
  • Flexibility of Closure — The ability to identify or detect a known pattern (a figure, object, word, or sound) that is hidden in other distracting material.
  • Fluency of Ideas — The ability to come up with a number of ideas about a topic (the number of ideas is important, not their quality, correctness, or creativity).
  • Mathematical Reasoning — The ability to choose the right mathematical methods or formulas to solve a problem.
  • Number Facility — The ability to add, subtract, multiply, or divide quickly and correctly.
  • Perceptual Speed — The ability to quickly and accurately compare similarities and differences among sets of letters, numbers, objects, pictures, or patterns. The things to be compared may be presented at the same time or one after the other. This ability also includes comparing a presented object with a remembered object.
  • Selective Attention — The ability to concentrate on a task over a period of time without being distracted.

Interests

Interest code: CE
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  • Conventional — Work involves following procedures and regulations to organize information or data, typically in a business setting. Conventional occupations are often associated with office work, accounting, mathematics/statistics, information technology, finance, or human resources.
    • Office Work — Work involves clerical and administrative tasks for an organization such as answering phones, bookkeeping, updating records, scheduling appointments or meetings, and editing of documents and files.
    • Accounting — Work involves examining, analyzing, and interpreting accounting records for financial statements, or maintaining, auditing, or evaluating records and accounts.
  • Enterprising — Work involves managing, negotiating, marketing, or selling, typically in a business setting, or leading or advising people in political and legal situations. Enterprising occupations are often associated with business initiatives, sales, marketing/advertising, finance, management/administration, professional advising, public speaking, politics, or law.

Work Styles

  • Cautiousness — A tendency to be careful, deliberate, and risk-avoidant when making work-related decisions or doing work.
  • Integrity — A tendency to be honest and ethical at work.
  • Attention to Detail — A tendency to be detail-oriented, organized, and thorough in completing work.
  • Dependability — A tendency to be reliable, responsible, and consistent in meeting work-related obligations.

Workforce Characteristics

Wages & Employment Trends

Median wage data for Compliance Officers.
Employment data for Compliance Officers.
Industry data for Compliance Officers.
Median wages (2025)
$38.81 hourly, $80,730 annual
State wages
Local wages
Employment (2025)
436,400 employees
Projected growth (2025-2035)
Average (3% to 4%)
Projected job openings (2025-2035)
32,700
State trends
Top industries (2025)

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics 2025 wage data and 2025-2035 employment projections . “Projected growth” represents the estimated change in total employment over the projections period (2025-2035). “Projected job openings” represent openings due to growth and replacement.

Job Openings on the Web

State job openings
Local job openings

More Information

Professional Associations

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National Associations