How To Become A Customs Broker: What It Is and Career Path

What is a customs broker and how to become one

Updated January 8, 2025

3 min read

There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a customs broker. For example, did you know that they make an average of $27.97 an hour? That's $58,184 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 5% and produce 30,100 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreCustoms BrokerUS Average

Salary

4.5

Avg. Salary $58,184

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

7.3

Growth rate 5%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

4.3

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.43%

Asian 8.83%

Black or African American 6.36%

Hispanic or Latino 9.39%

Unknown 4.56%

White 70.43%

Gender

female 48.96%

male 51.04%

Age - 43

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 3.00%

Asian 7.00%

Black or African American 14.00%

Hispanic or Latino 19.00%

White 57.00%

Gender

female 47.00%

male 53.00%

Age - 43

Stress level

7.3

Stress level is high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

9.4

Complexity level is advanced

7 - challenging

Work life balance

4.9

Work life balance is fair

6.4 - fair

Key steps to become a customs broker

Explore customs broker education requirements

Most common customs broker degrees

Bachelor's

54.3 %

Associate

19.5 %

High School Diploma

14.2 %

Start to develop specific customs broker skills

Skills	Percentages
Data Entry	17.15%
Customer Service	14.78%
Customs Regulations	8.63%
US Customs	5.87%
FDA	5.19%

Complete relevant customs broker training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 6-12 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New customs brokers learn the skills and techniques required for their job and employer during this time. The chart below shows how long it takes to gain competency as a customs broker based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real customs broker resumes.

Research customs broker duties and responsibilities

Call new and return customer leads for Medicare solutions.
Manage all office relate matters to include accounting, international traffic and logistics.
Work with procedures for FDA and understands all government regulations.
Handle all issues pertaining to FDA & USDA and all other CFR regulations for all customers.

Get customs broker experience

Prepare your customs broker resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your customs broker resume.

You can use Zippia's AI resume builder to make the resume writing process easier while also making sure that you include key information that hiring managers expect to see on a customs broker resume. You'll find resume tips and examples of skills, responsibilities, and summaries, all provided by Zippi, your career sidekick.

Choose from 10+ customizable customs broker resume templates

Build a professional customs broker resume in minutes. Browse through our resume examples to identify the best way to word your resume. Then choose from 10+ resume templates to create your customs broker resume.