You review the pedimento for an import that arrived three weeks ago and find the description doesn’t match what you actually received. Or the quantity is in the wrong unit. Or the declared value went in without the freight you did pay.
The immediate question is always the same: can this be fixed?
Almost always, yes. But not the way an ordinary document gets fixed.
A pedimento isn’t edited — it’s amended
There is no option to “correct” the original entry. What exists is the amendment (rectificación): a new pedimento transmitted with a reference to the earlier one, replacing the incorrect field.
That has two practical consequences worth understanding up front:
- The original doesn’t disappear. It stays in the history of your operation, with the error and the correction layered on top. Traceability covers the whole file, not just the latest version.
- The amendment is timestamped. And that date matters: correcting after ten days is not the same as after ten months, nor is correcting before a query the same as after one.
What can be amended and what can’t
The general rule is that pedimento fields are amendable — but not all of them, not always, and not the same number of times. The foreign trade rules distinguish between fields by their effect: some can be corrected fairly freely, while others are constrained in count, in deadline, or by requiring authorization, precisely because they change the fiscal nature of the operation.
The fields most often amended in practice:
- Description of the goods, when it doesn’t match what arrived.
- Quantities in commercial or tariff units of measure.
- Declared value, when dutiable additions were missed or a price adjustment occurred.
- Tariff classification, the highest-impact one because it drags duty rates and regulations with it.
- Identifiers for preferential treatment or promotion programs.
- Supplier data or transport document details.
Before assuming your case is amendable, confirm the rule currently in force for that specific field: this is an area the authority updates, and the detail matters more than the general principle.
The point that decides everything: who found the error
Here is the difference between a procedure and a problem.
If you find it and amend voluntarily, you are in the best position available. You pay whatever differences apply, with adjustments and surcharges, and the operation is regularized. Expensive in money, cheap in consequences.
If the authority finds it, the road is different. It can arrive as a query, as part of a desk audit, or — if it surfaces during clearance or customs inspection — as the opening of a PAMA with precautionary seizure. At that point you aren’t correcting anymore; you’re defending.
A voluntary amendment doesn’t erase the error, but it completely changes how it reads. An importer who detects and corrects demonstrates control over their operation. One who gets caught demonstrates the opposite, and that reading carries weight when the authority weighs carelessness against intent.
What amending costs
Not just the filing. Depending on what you correct:
- Duty and tax differences, when the corrected field raises the base or changes the rate. Payable with adjustments and surcharges from the original date.
- Fines for the violation, which can be reduced when the correction is spontaneous.
- Effect on credited VAT, if the original entry supported a credit that no longer reconciles.
- Effect on inventory, if you operate under IMMEX: an amendment not reflected in your control system leaves a discrepancy in Annex 24. It is one of the most common discrepancies and one of the easiest to avoid.
That last point gets missed constantly. Amending the pedimento and leaving inventory untouched solves half the problem.
When it’s no longer possible
Three situations take amendment off the table:
- The field doesn’t allow it, or you’ve used up the amendments permitted for that data.
- The applicable deadline expired. Deadlines vary by scenario; verify the one covering your case before assuming you’re still in time.
- A procedure is already open. Once the authority has formalized a review or a PAMA over that operation, correcting on your own may not have the effect you expect — and in some cases can complicate the defense. That decision is made with legal counsel, not administratively.
How it’s avoided in the first place
Almost every amendment we’ve seen could have been prevented at one of two moments:
Before shipping. Settling the tariff classification, confirming which regulations it triggers, and assembling the value file. Most substantive errors are born here, when information gets decided late.
On receiving the pedimento. Half an hour of review against the invoice, packing list and payment receipt. It’s laid out in how to read a pedimento, and that review is exactly what turns an error into a voluntary amendment instead of an authority finding.
The difference between the two is weeks on the calendar and an order of magnitude in cost.
At TradeWay
We review classification and the value file before goods ship, and we hand you the pedimento with the file organized per operation so you can verify it while correcting is still cheap. If you found an error in a recent import or want us to review the last few, contact us.
