USMCA / Generic Certificate of Origin

A certificate of origin is an international shipping document that verifies an item’s country of origin. This type of document is required when shipping internationally, as it helps customs assess trade agreements, duties, and taxes that need to be applied to the order. When booking an international shipment, ShipHawk will automatically generate a certificate of origin for your order if the origin address of the order is within the United States ‘US’.

Certificates of origin are automatically enabled for all customers. No additional setup is required. If a certificate of origin is available, users can manually print the certificate upon booking a shipment from the Order Details or Shipment Details page.

When an order has both intermediate consignee and ultimate consignee addresses, the address of the ultimate consignee is used to determine whether or not a shipment is international.

ShipHawk supports two kinds of certificates of origin for international shipments: generic certificates of origin, and USMCA certificates of origin.

A generic certificate of origin is generated upon booking an international shipment when an item in the shipment has a country of origin that is not the United States, Canada, or Mexico and when the Shipment Origin Country is the United States ‘US’.
A USMCA certificate of origin is generated upon booking a shipment when the origin country and the destination country are either the US, Canada, or Mexico.

Based on the country of origin of the SKUs in a given shipment, one or both of the certificates of origin may be generated for a given shipment. The following sections will describe the differences between each certificate of origin, and provide definitions for the fields configured in each document.

Generic Certificate of Origin

A generic certificate of origin is a non-preferential certificate that indicates where an item originated from. The purpose of a non-preferential certificate is to verify the country of origin of an item; it cannot be used to identify a trade agreement between the origin and destination countries of a shipment.

This type of certificate is generated for an international shipment that has the US listed as the Shipment Origin Country, and has SKUs that belong to shipment with a country of origin outside of the United States, Mexico, or Canada. This includes international shipments made with Will Call or Company Truck.

GENERIC CERTIFICATE OF ORIGIN FIELDS

Owner or Agent	This field is populated with the name of the certifier whose signature is included in this document.
Name and Address of Shipper	This field is populated with the name and default address of the company shipping the goods. This line is derived from the Shipment Origin Address field.
Carrier Name	This field is populated with the name of the carrier fulfilling the shipment.
Shipment Date	The Ship Date is populated in this field.
Recipient’s Name and Address	This field is populated with the name and address of the ultimate consignee (if applicable). If there is no ultimate consignee, the Destination Address will be populated here.
Marks & Numbers (Airway Bill / Tracking #)	This field is populated with the Tracking Number of a parcel shipment or PRO Number of an LTL shipment.
No. of Pkg, Boxes, or Cases	This field displays the number of packages in this shipment.
Gross Unit in Kg	The total weight of the item in Kilograms (Kg).
Country of Origin	This field displays the country of origin for the item if the item’s country of origin is not ‘US’, ‘CA’, or ‘MX’.
Description of Goods	This field provides a product description of the item being shipped. This is usually derived from the Commodity Description.
Certification Date	If the warehouse signature is applied to the shipping document, the shipment creation date will be used in this field.
Certifier’s Signature	Customers can store a name and signature for each warehouse so when a shipment that requires a certificate of origin is created, this signature is applied to each shipping document in the signature space.

SAMPLE GENERIC CERTIFICATE OF ORIGIN

USMCA Certificate of Origin

USMCA stands for the United States - Mexico - Canada Agreement, which is a free trade agreement between the named countries that allows qualifying products to be exempt from tariffs and duties. A USMCA certificate of origin is a preferential certificate that indicates an international shipment has been booked between the United States, Canada, and Mexico. The purpose of a preferential certificate like the USMCA certificate is to certify that there is a trade agreement between the origin and destination countries of a shipment.

ShipHawk will generate a USMCA certificate of origin when an international shipment between the United States, Canada, and Mexico is booked. This includes international shipments made with Will Call or Company Truck.

This certificate does not apply if the origin country and destination country matches (i.e. if the shipment is domestic).

USMCA CERTIFICATE OF ORIGIN FIELDS

Certifier	Signals whether the certifier is an: Importer Exporter Producer NOTE: The correct option is chosen automatically for you and will in almost all cases be Exporter.
Certifier’s Details	This field is populated with the Shipment Origin Address.
Exporter’s Details	This field is only populated if the address differs from the Certifier’s Details field.
Producer’s Details	This field is only populated if the address differs from the Certifier’s Details field or the Exporter’s Details field.
Importer’s Details	This field is populated with the Order billing address details. If the order billing address is not present, the order destination address is used for this field.
Description of Good(s)	This field provides a product description of the item being shipped. This is usually derived from the Commodity Description.
Harmonized System Tariff Classification	This field is populated with the information from the Harmonized Code in the sales order.
Country of Origin	This field is populated with the information from the Country of Origin on the sales order.
Origin Criterion	The option for this field is always B.
Blanket Period	This field displays the first and last date of the year the shipment is created on. For example: If the shipment is created in May 2022, the blanket period is 01/01/2022 to 12/31/2022.
Certification Date	If the warehouse signature is applied to the shipping document, the shipment creation date will be used in this field.
Certifier’s Signature	Customers can store a name and signature for each warehouse so when a shipment that requires a certificate of origin is created, this signature is applied to each shipping document in the signature space.

ShipHawk Guide