This week, CSMS message 17-000255 was issued with an update on the Foreign Supplier Verification Program (FSVP) Data Requirements.  Reporting the DUNS number and contact information will still be mandatory on May 30th, 2017, but the FDA will allow for the submission of “UNK†(unknown) in place of the DUNS number TEMPORARILY for the on-boarding period.  CBP will also issue a CSMS message ‘at a later date’ to indicate when “UNK†will no longer be accepted.
Though this shows a slight reprieve from the May 30th ‘hard’ deadline for the DUNS number, we do recommend that all of our clients continue to work diligently to obtain FSVP contacts and DUNS numbers from their US buyers.
To obtain a DUNS number for free, visit www.fdadunslookup.com . DUNS numbers should be unique for each firm (a corporate headquarters with multiple company locations should not have the same DUNS number for each site). Each unique site (address) should have a unique DUNS number.