The customs engine for licensed brokers and trade lawyers

Every fact quoted. Every dollar computed. Every answer proved.

Landwaiter reads the law behind every product that enters the United States. It answers the six questions of an import in one living product file, and every value carries its receipt: the document, the place and the exact words, checked by code.

Try it on a closed matter Open a real file
92.6% of answers right in an internal blind test on CBP rulings the AI had never seen
Product file · CBP ruling N366033 Printed paper cup, 4 oz From China · law of 20 October 2026
Reading 00:00
  1. Classification4823.69.0020HQ H287719 ¶29
  2. OriginChina19 CFR 134.1(b)
  3. AD/CVDNo order reaches itFR 2026-01604 ¶61
  4. DutyFree + 37.5%computed in code
  5. Admissibility4 requirementsNY N022942 ¶17
  6. Proof83 documents readevery quote checked
Open facts 3 questions for the client Ready for your review
1Subject
Every product that enters the United States
2Answers
Six questions, in one living file
3Evidence
A receipt for every value
4Money
Computed in code, never guessed
5Signer
You, the licensed professional

Article IThe stakes

Behind every entry sits a question of law. Today, people answer it by hand.

102.4M
entry summaries filed with CBP in the first ten months of fiscal year 2026 1
$306.7B
in duties, taxes and fees collected over the same months 1
33
editions of the tariff schedule published in 2025: the rulebook changed more than twice a month 2
$549.5M
paid in May 2026 to settle one importer's AD/CVD evasion claims 3

Why general AI fails here

A model alone sees a product name. A broker sees five traps.

  1. 01Thin factsAn invoice line is not a product description. The fact that decides is often missing.
  2. 02Notes that excludeOne quiet chapter note can move a product to the other end of the tariff.
  3. 03ThresholdsA few cents a piece, or a percentage of a material, can change the line and the duty.
  4. 04PrecedentCBP has issued more than 220,000 rulings, each with its reasons. They decide the hard calls.
  5. 05A moving rulebookExtra duties start and stop by date. The answer depends on the day of entry.

The difference is not the model. It is the method.

Article IIThe method

The agent reads. Code calculates. Receipts prove. You sign.

  1. 01

    The documents arrive as they are.

    An invoice, a specification sheet, an email, a photo. Landwaiter reads each one as evidence, in whatever shape it comes.

  2. 02

    The whole law, as it stood on the day of entry.

    The tariff in force on that day, the extra duties, the AD/CVD orders, CBP's rulings, the courts and the agencies' rules, each read as it stood on the date that matters.

  3. 03

    Six questions, one coherent file.

    Classification, origin, AD/CVD, duty, admissibility and proof are each researched in depth, and all six answers rest on the same facts.

  4. 04

    Every value carries a receipt.

    The document, the place and the exact words. Every quote is checked against its source before you see it. No receipt, no value.

  5. 05

    The money is computed in code.

    Every layer, from the general rate to the extra duties and the deposits, is computed exactly, never estimated by the AI. The file shows each layer with its legal source.

  6. 06

    What is missing becomes a question.

    Landwaiter does not guess. Each fact that the documents leave open goes back as a plain question for the client, with the answer it would change.

  7. 07

    You review. You sign.

    The file is a draft until a licensed professional signs it. You see every reason, every rival line set aside and every source, so you can decide fast and defend the decision later.

Article IIIA real file

Nothing is claimed without being shown.

This file comes from our internal blind test. CBP decided this paper cup in ruling N366033; the engine could not see that ruling. It reached CBP's line in 27 minutes, and the blind graders found all six answers right. Choose a question and read what the engine read.

Classification

4823.69.0020

Paper cups, other than of bamboo · general rate Free

  • The first rule of interpretation places a formed single-wall paper cup in heading 4823.
  • The printed logo is subsidiary to the cup's use (chapter 48, note 12), so the cup stays out of chapter 49.
  • The strongest rival, a ruling that used 4819.50, was read and outweighed by CBP's Headquarters holding on paper cups.
CBP ruling HQ H287719paragraph 29
EN 48.23 states, in relevant part, that this heading covers: (4) Trays, dishes, plates, cups and the like, of paper or paperboard.

Quote found at its place by code

Facts from the public ruling, as the importer described the goods. The brand is left out here. Law as of 20 October 2026. Not advice for any shipment.

Article IVThe proof

Tested blind, on rulings the AI had never seen.

We took rulings that CBP issued after the AI model's knowledge cutoff. Landwaiter received only the product facts, never the rulings. Blind graders checked every answer against CBP's decision and the primary law.

92.6%

of all answers right. Six questions on every ruling, each graded blind.

82%

exact to the 10-digit line, the hardest part of the job.

100%

origin and proof right in every case. AD/CVD and admissibility: 95.6% each.

Answers right, by question · one cell per percent Right Wrong

Ahead of every published ten‑digit result we know of

Exact classification at ten digits is the hardest number in the field, and where AI has struggled most. Here are the best published results we know of, beside ours.

Published figures come from their own test sets; this is context, not a head-to-head test. Ours is an internal blind test on fresh CBP rulings. A public study is in preparation.

More than once, the blind graders found the engine right and the answer key wrong.
From our blind-test grading
  • 24–33 minfor a complete file, all six questions
  • Every quotechecked by code against its source
  • Every gapreturned as a plain question for the client

Article VThe watchtower

The law moves every week. Your files move with it.

Every morning Landwaiter reads what changed in the law. When a change reaches one of your files, the bell rings: the file reopens with the change and its receipt, ready for your review.

  • The tariff
  • The Federal Register
  • CBP
  • Commerce
  • The courts
  • Sanctions and forced-labor lists
  • Partner agencies
This morning's reading Illustration

Article VIWork with us

Start where the law is clear.

Landwaiter is becoming a licensed US customs brokerage that runs on its own engine. Until its licence is active, we take the work whose legal basis is clear: the work of licensed brokers and trade lawyers.

I

Ruling requests

A binding ruling request built from the file: the facts, the legal path, the rulings on each side, every quote checked.

II

Protests

An entry re-read against the law of its date, with the duty recomputed layer by layer and a receipt behind every argument.

III

Counsel-led Commerce matters

Scope, circumvention and evasion work led by counsel: the words of each order read against the goods.

IV

Past and public cases

Run the engine on a matter you have closed, and compare its file with what you decided.

The trial

Try it on a matter you have already closed.

Send us a product whose answer you know. You get back the complete file, cited and computed, with its open questions, ready for your review. Grade it against your own work.

Request a trial file

You stay the signer. Landwaiter does not file entries, and it never pushes a code into an entry on its own. Client records travel only with the client's written consent (19 CFR 111.24).

Article VIIThe name

The landwaiter met the goods as they came ashore.

In eighteenth-century customs, the landwaiter was the officer on the quay. When goods were landed, he would examine them, taste them, weigh them or measure them, and take an account. 6

The young republic founded its own customs service on 31 July 1789, by the Fifth Act of the First Congress. 7 Today more than a hundred million entries pass through it in ten months, and the account behind each one is still kept by hand.

Landwaiter keeps the account again: every product examined, every value proved.

  1. 1The tricorn of a Continental soldier
  2. 2The cockade, where the circuit starts
  3. 3A touch of the flag on his shoulders
  4. 4One circuit line: the engine, wired into the bell
  5. 5The Liberty Bell is his coat
  6. 6The red clapper: the bell rings when the law changes

In one file, for every product

We hold these to be self-evident:

  1. That the agent reads,
  2. that code calculates,
  3. that receipts prove,
  4. that a missing fact is asked, never guessed,
  5. and that a licensed professional signs.
The Landwaiter method
Try it on a closed matter