CPSC eFiling Compliance for US- Bound Shipments — Merchant Guide
Overview
From July 8, 2026, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) requires electronic filing (eFiling) of product-safety Certificate of Compliance data for certain consumer products entering the United States. The requirement is set by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). Global-e acts as Merchant of Record (MOR) and Importer of Record (IOR) for US imports and is therefore legally responsible for filing this data with the CPSC Product Registry on Merchant’s behalf. Global-e handles the full technical integration with CPSC and registers the products on behalf of the Merchant — the merchant is responsible for supplying the underlying product-safety data. If that data is missing or incorrect, shipments can be held at US customs.Why this matters
- Keeps shipments moving — prevents US customs holds on affected products.
- Avoids penalties — protects you and Global-e from CPSC enforcement action.
- Preserves US selling — required to continue US cross-border shipping via Global-e Logistics or Global-E integration after July 8, 2026.
Who and what is in scope
- Merchants shipping to the US via Global-e Logistics or Global-E integration.
- Products whose HTS code appears on the CPSC in-scope list (~600 codes) — e.g. toys, children’s products, and other regulated consumer goods. Ref: CPSC-Guidance-and-HTSList-for-Filing-of-Electronic-Certificates-040826-V5.pdf
- Merchants who believe their products are required by the regulation.
- All Global-e supported platforms: Classic via SFTP and Shopify via the platform integration.
How the process works
Global-e registers the products with CPSC and then uses a “register once, reference each shipment” model:- You provide the full product-safety certificate dataset once per product.
- Global-e stores the data and registers each product with the CPSC Product Registry.
- On each US-bound order, the relevant certificate data is passed to the carrier for electronic filing with US Customs.
Sharing your data
You can share your product-safety data through one of two channels:Option 1 — SFTP (CSV upload)
For non-Shopify / SFTP merchants. Global-e creates a /Cpsc folder in your Global-e SFTP server. You upload a CSV file (one row per product variant) using the provided template.Option 2 — Shopify metafields
For Shopify merchants. Tag each affected product with the tag ‘CPSC product’ and populate the product-safety data in variant-level metafields in the ‘globale’ namespace. Only tagged products are scanned.The data you need to provide
The same product-safety data set is required regardless of channel. The minimum required data per product is:- Version ID — certificate version identifier.
- Primary Product ID + ID Type — your product identifier and its type (GTIN / UPC / SKU / Model Number / Serial Number / Registered Number / Alternate Identifier).
- Certificate Type — GCC (General Certificate) or CPC (Children’s Product Certificate).
- Product Name.
- Manufacture Date (MM/YYYY).
- Last Test Date (MM/DD/YYYY).
- Manufacturer — GLN or Alternate ID (plus name, address and contact details if the manufacturer is new).
- Testing lab — at least one lab with citation codes (16 CFR codes), or applicable testing exemption codes.
- Point of Contact for test-result records (Importer / Manufacturer / Laboratory / Broker / Other).
Keeping your data current
- Add CPSC data for any new regulated product as you add it to your catalog.
- Update the certificate (new Version ID) whenever safety testing or certificate details change.
- Have your data in place ahead of the July 8, 2026 effective date.
Need help?
Contact your Global-e account manager or CSM to:- Confirm whether your catalog is affected (CPSC exposure review).
- Receive your SFTP /Cpsc folder details and the CSV upload template, or the Shopify meta field setup guide.