The primary duty of a customs brokerage agent is to manage general business operations. He/She receives, reviews, and processes import documentation from various sources. He/She also examines invoices, bills of lading, and shipping documents to ensure compliance with federal regulations. Furthermore, he/she liaises with origin and destination locations to know shipment status, special handling, and delivery processes. Also, he/she helps with verifying customs declaration information and their submission to the customs authority. The agent ensures adherence to all relevant regulations.
To become a customs brokerage agent, you need a minimum of a high school diploma or its equivalent. You must have at least two years of experience in a similar role and must possess interpersonal, organization, customer service, and communication skills. Also, you must be proficient in Microsoft Office. Additionally, you must be conversant with the customs brokerage process and customs legislation. This personnel earns about $42,353 per annum. The salary ranges from $32,000 to $55,000.
There is more than meets the eye when it comes to being a customs brokerage agent. For example, did you know that they make an average of $23.26 an hour? That's $48,388 a year!
When it comes to the most important skills required to be a customs brokerage agent, we found that a lot of resumes listed 32.7% of customs brokerage agents included customer service, while 22.9% of resumes included data entry, and 17.5% of resumes included ensure compliance. Hard skills like these are helpful to have when it comes to performing essential job responsibilities.
If you're interested in becoming a customs brokerage agent, one of the first things to consider is how much education you need. We've determined that 60.9% of customs brokerage agents have a bachelor's degree. In terms of higher education levels, we found that 3.6% of customs brokerage agents have master's degrees. Even though most customs brokerage agents have a college degree, it's possible to become one with only a high school degree or GED.
Choosing the right major is always an important step when researching how to become a customs brokerage agent. When we researched the most common majors for a customs brokerage agent, we found that they most commonly earn bachelor's degree degrees or associate degree degrees. Other degrees that we often see on customs brokerage agent resumes include high school diploma degrees or master's degree degrees.
You may find that experience in other jobs will help you become a customs brokerage agent. In fact, many customs brokerage agent jobs require experience in a role such as sales associate. Meanwhile, many customs brokerage agents also have previous career experience in roles such as customer service representative or import-export agent.