An assist is anything the buyer supplies, directly or indirectly, free of charge or at reduced cost, for use in producing the imported merchandise. The statute names four categories: materials and components incorporated into the goods, tools, dies, and molds used in production, items consumed during production, and engineering, development, artwork, and design work performed outside the United States and necessary for production. The assist value is added to the price actually paid or payable to reach the transaction value, and it is the most commonly missed addition in the statute. A $12,000 mold that produces 60,000 units adds $0.20 of assist value to each unit.
The mold you gave away is the one customs counts
The classic assist is a mold, a die, a jig, or tooling the buyer supplies to the factory, but the definition is wider. Engineering and design work done outside the United States, artwork, and even materials or components the buyer provides to the factory all count. The trigger is that the item is used in production of the imported goods. A laptop lent to a supplier for email does not count. The steel mold that stamps the product's housing absolutely does, and so does the design file emailed for free, which has a value equal to what the buyer paid the designer.
Assists also catch indirect supply. If the buyer pays a third party to make tooling and has it shipped to the factory, that is still the buyer's assist, because CBP looks at who bore the cost, not whose name is on the shipping label. The boundary worth knowing exactly is the design work rule: engineering and design work performed in the United States, and incidental to work done in the United States, is not an assist. The same work performed abroad is. A buyer who moves design work offshore to save money has created an assist, and the duty on it is part of the saving's true cost.
Related reading on this site: TariffTrack HQ and Tariff Engineering: When a Design Change Legitimately Changes the Duty Rate cover the neighbouring problems in more depth.
How to value an assist, and how to spread it
Valuing an assist follows its own rules. If the buyer bought it from an unrelated seller, the value is the acquisition cost. If the buyer made it or bought it from a related party, the value is the cost of production, including getting it to the factory, and for tools or molds already used before being sent to the producer, the original cost is adjusted down for prior use. Publicly available material is valued at the cost of obtaining copies. The total value must then be apportioned across the imported goods using generally accepted accounting principles: a $12,000 mold producing 60,000 units carries $0.20 of assist value on each unit, added to the unit price on the entry.
CBP allows several apportionment approaches, including allocating the full value to the first shipment, spreading it over the number of units produced up to the first shipment, or dividing it across the entire anticipated production run if all output will be imported to the United States. One approach CBP will not accept is using IRS depreciation schedules, because depreciation can leave part of the assist's value permanently outside the duty calculation, and Congress intended the full value of every assist to be dutiable. Repairs and modifications to the assist count too: a $2,000 refurbishment of the mold mid-production joins the assist value.
Most importers find out in an audit, not before
Most brands discover assists during a CBP audit, not before, because the assist never appears on the commercial invoice and the broker never sees it. The miss is expensive because assists are easy for CBP to spot in hindsight: the tooling payment is in the buyer's books, the factory's production records show the mold, and the entry shows no assist declared. The audit exposure runs up to five years, because importers must keep entry records for five years from the date of entry, and every entry in that window with an undeclared assist is a separate violation.
The practical setup is a per-SKU assist schedule shared with the broker, listing every mold, die, design file, and component the buyer supplied, with the value and the apportionment method for each. Factory-built tooling reflected in the unit price is not an assist, so verify how the quote breaks out tooling costs before assuming the factory covered it. If an undeclared assist is discovered from prior entries, prior disclosure is the fix: report it before CBP opens an investigation, and the penalty is capped. The assist is not a trap for the careful importer. It is a trap for the importer who never looked.
Frequently asked questions
What counts as an assist for customs value?
Anything the buyer supplies, directly or indirectly, free of charge or at reduced cost, for use in producing the imported merchandise. The four categories are materials and components, tools, dies, and molds, items consumed in production, and engineering and design work done outside the United States.
Is design work done in the United States an assist?
No. Engineering or design work performed by the buyer's US-based employees, incidental to work done in the United States, is excluded from the assist definition. The same work performed abroad is an assist.
How is an assist valued?
If bought from an unrelated seller, the value is the acquisition cost. If the buyer produced it or bought it from a related party, the value is the cost of production, including transport to the factory. The value is then apportioned across the imported goods, such as a $12,000 mold over 60,000 units adding $0.20 per unit.
What happens if I discover an undeclared assist from prior entries?
Prior disclosure is the fix: report it to CBP before the agency opens an investigation, and the penalty is capped. The audit exposure runs up to five years, because entry records must be kept for five years.