Forgot to pass through customs

7/20/2022 10:31:22 AM

littleadv explained what likely happened in your situation, but to give a broader answer:

In any commercial airport in a developed country, it is virtually impossible to "accidentally" evade required screening (security, immigration, customs, etc.).

Airports take this very seriously, with carefully defined pre-/post-screening zones and electronic access control on any doors between them. Even airport employees moving between zones are subject to additional scrutiny. If you don’t hear an ear-splitting siren and nobody’s tackling you to the ground, you haven’t evaded anything.

Now, that’s not to say that you can’t accidentally do the wrong thing. In particular, customs in EU airports will generally have three "customs lanes" — blue for intra-EU arrivals, green for "nothing to declare", red for "something to declare". Passing through a particular one of these lanes is explicitly making a customs declaration, and if you forget (or "forget") to declare something which you’re required to declare, that’s a crime. But absentmindedly wandering through the blue lane instead of the green lane is not going to cause you problems later on.

7/20/2022 12:15:33 AM

In the US, the "immigration" and "customs" are the same people and the same agency (Customs and Border Protection agency, the CBP). They wear the same uniforms. If you passed through immigration – you were inspected by the CBP, and that includes customs.

Physically, there are two steps: the passport control (which is what you probably referred to "passing through immigration"), and customs control. The latter is usually rare to end up in an actual physical inspection (happened to me exactly once). Usually you just go out of the baggage claim area, passing the CBP folks who’re doing the customs controls. It is not unusual to not even notice them being there (as happened to you). As other answers suggest – they do often appear "just standing there bored". But don’t worry, if they wanted to inspect you – you’d know.

You cannot exit the baggage area without being either inspected or chosen to not be inspected by the CBP officers responsible for the customs control, just as you cannot enter the baggage area without being inspected by the CBP officers responsible for the passport control.

There are no paper forms in the US any more.

7/20/2022 8:30:55 PM

I don’t remember any green or red area in any of the US airports I have been to, just a space with metal tables and officers standing around. Typically, you had to hand them a customs declaration form but I don’t think it’s mandatory to interact with them if you are not challenged and have nothing to declare.

Unlike immigration, customs in the US has always been rather light touch and I don’t think you risk being blacklisted. Immigration violations would be much more serious in that respect.

7/19/2022 10:24:54 PM

If you exited the baggage area, then you passed through customs. US customs officers do not always stop everyone leaving the baggage area. I don’t think you have anything to worry about.

Credit:stackoverflow.com‘

About me

Hello,My name is Aparna Patel,I’m a Travel Blogger and Photographer who travel the world full-time with my hubby.I like to share my travel experience.

Search Posts

Latest posts

Popular posts