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

What is a customs collector 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 collector. For example, did you know that they make an average of $15.68 an hour? That's $32,623 a year! Between 2018 and 2028, the career is expected to grow 3% and produce 20,600 job opportunities across the U.S.

ScoreCustoms CollectorUS Average

Salary

2.5

Avg. Salary $32,623

Avg. Salary $59,228

Stability level

10.0

Growth rate 3%

Growth rate 0.3%

Diversity

3.0

Race

American Indian and Alaska Native 0.67%

Asian 2.83%

Black or African American 12.03%

Hispanic or Latino 17.17%

Unknown 5.00%

White 62.29%

Gender

female 70.11%

male 29.89%

Age - 44

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 - 44

Stress level

10.0

Stress level is very high

7.1 - high

Complexity level

8.8

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 collector

Explore customs collector education requirements

Most common customs collector degrees

High School Diploma

32.7 %

Bachelor's

26.7 %

Associate

22.9 %

Start to develop specific customs collector skills

Skills	Percentages
Payment Arrangements	14.12%
Delinquent Accounts	11.61%
Past Due Accounts	8.56%
Customer Accounts	5.33%
Process Payments	4.96%

Complete relevant customs collector training and internships

Accountants spend an average of 1-3 months on post-employment, on-the-job training. New customs collectors 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 collector based on U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data and data from real customs collector resumes.

Research customs collector duties and responsibilities

Manage all VIP clients of the company.
Experience at working towards set quality standards and achieving SLA during monthly quality audits.
Lead a team of first line supervisors who are tasked with managing various enforcement programs for CBP.
Manage VIP visits and deal with all areas of logistics including event management and corporate hospitality

Prepare your customs collector resume

When your background is strong enough, you can start writing your customs collector 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 collector 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 collector resume templates

Build a professional customs collector 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 collector resume.