When filing in AESDirect, you may be tempted to only fill out required data fields (marked in red) and ignore the conditional data fields (marked in blue). You may be surprised to know that it’s very uncommon for an AES record to contain only the data fields marked in RED. However, in most cases, at least one conditional field is required.
Most of the conditional fields are located in the Shipment Information and Add Commodity Line sections in AESDirect and AESPcLink . Let’s define the most common conditional fields in these sections and find out when they are required.
For additional information on conditional data elements, review Section 30.6 of the Foreign Trade Regulations.
If you need clarification on reporting conditional data elements to the AES, contact the AES Branch at 800-549-0595, option 1.