---
title: "Every number on a US export declaration, decoded"
description: "Every number on a US export declaration in one table: the ITN, shipment reference number, EIN, export information code, Schedule B, ECCN, and the license codes."
canonical: https://exportdocshub.com/blog/export-declaration-numbers
published: 2026-09-09
---

# Every number on a US export declaration, decoded

> Every number on a US export declaration in one table: the ITN, shipment reference number, EIN, export information code, Schedule B, ECCN, and the license codes.

## The table

Every number that can appear on, or behind, a US export shipment. Formats use `A` for a letter and `N` for a digit.

| Number | Issued by | Format | Example | Where it goes | Do you need it? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| **ITN** (Internal Transaction Number) | AES, on acceptance of your filing | 15 characters: `X` + `YYYYMMDD` + 6 digits | `X20260818123456` | First page of the bill of lading, air waybill or export shipping instructions, as `AES X20260818123456` | **Yes**, whenever EEI is required |
| **SRN** (Shipment Reference Number) | **You**, the filer | 1 to 17 letters and digits, never reused | `EDH-2026-0417` | AES step 1. Your key to retrieve or amend the filing | **Yes**, always |
| **USPPI ID number (EIN)** | IRS | 9 digits, `NN-NNNNNNN` | `12-3456789` | AES step 2, with ID number type set to EIN. Not required on any commercial document | **Yes**, always |
| **EIC** (Export Information Code) | Code list in AESTIR Appendix E | 2 characters from a fixed list | `OS` | AES step 3, once per commodity line | **Yes**, and it is `OS` for almost every commercial sale |
| **Schedule B number** | US Census Bureau | 10 digits, filed without the dots | `8481.80.9050`, filed as `8481809050` | AES step 3, and by convention on the commercial invoice | **Yes**, or an HTS number instead |
| **HTS number** | US International Trade Commission | 10 digits | `8481.80.9040` | Import entries. May substitute for Schedule B in AES, with exceptions | Optional substitute |
| **ECCN** | The Commerce Control List. Self classify, ask the manufacturer, or request a CCATS from BIS | 5 characters: a category digit, a product group letter A to E, then 3 digits | `3A001` | AES step 3 | Only if the item is on the CCL. Otherwise the conclusion is `EAR99` |
| **License code / exemption code** | AESTIR Appendix F list | 3 characters, `ANN` | `C33` for NLR, `C30` for a BIS license | AES step 3, license type field. **Required on every line** | **Yes**. Most small exporters report `C33` |
| **Export license number** | BIS, DDTC, OFAC, DEA, NRC | No published format. BIS returns it to you in SNAP-R | | AES license number field, only with a license code that requires one | Rarely |
| **License exception symbol** | EAR Part 740 | 3 letters | `LVS`, `GBS`, `TMP`, `RPL`, `GFT`, `STA` | The same AES field as the license number, but you report the symbol | Only under an exception |
| **NOEEI exemption legend** | Nothing issues it. You cite the regulation | The section number of 15 CFR Part 30 | `NOEEI 30.37(a)` | The same slot on the bill of lading where an ITN would go. **Never both** | **Yes**, when you are exempt |
| **TRN** (Transportation Reference Number) | The carrier | Carrier defined | Ocean booking number | AES step 4. Required for vessel, optional for air | Yes for ocean |
| **Bill of lading / air waybill number** | The carrier | Carrier defined. An AWB is 11 digits, `NNN-NNNNNNNN` | `176-12345675` | On the carrier document itself. **Not an AES field** | Yes, and the carrier gives it to you |
| **SCAC** | NMFTA | 2 to 4 letters, usually 4 | `MAEU` | AES step 4, carrier SCAC or IATA code | Yes. Ask your carrier |
| **SED / Form 7525-V** | **Retired.** Nothing issues it | | | Nowhere. Removed from 15 CFR Part 30 in 2008 | **No. There is no SED number** |
| **Entry number** | A CBP filer code plus a serial the filer chooses | 11 characters: `AAA` + 7 digits + a check digit | `B76-0324527-8` | Block 1 of CBP Form 7501 | **No. Import side** |
| **Manifest / outbound cargo declaration** | The carrier | SCAC plus the bill number | | CBP Form 1302A | **No.** Carrier obligation. Your part is handing them the ITN |
| **Importer of record number** | Self asserted, registered on CBP Form 5106 | Your EIN plus an optional two digit suffix | `12-3456789-00` | Entry documents | **No. Import side** |
| **"Customs authorization number"** | | | | | **No such US number exists** |
| **Approved exporter number / REX number** | EU Member State customs | REX: ISO country code + `REX` + a national identifier. No EU wide mask for the approved exporter number | | EU origin declarations | **No.** A US company can hold neither |
| **Export permit number** | Foreign authorities (for example Canada under the EIPA, Singapore Customs) | Not published here | | Foreign filings | **No.** The US issues licenses, not export permits |

## Who is asking you for it?

The confusion rarely arrives as "what is an ITN." It arrives as somebody asking for a number using a word you have not heard. Start with who is asking.

- **Your freight forwarder** wants the ITN, or wants you to authorize them to file so they can generate one. If they ask for a reference number, they mean the SRN.
- **Your carrier** wants the ITN or a NOEEI legend on the shipping instructions before they will load. They give you the bill of lading and booking numbers, not the other way round.
- **Your buyer abroad** wants something for their import clearance: the invoice, an origin statement, HS codes. When they ask for an "authorization number" or an "approved exporter number", they are using EU vocabulary with no US equivalent.
- **The Post Office** wants the ITN or the exemption legend on the customs declaration. The form has a field for each.
- **CBP or Census** want the ITN, and behind it a filing whose data matches your invoice.
- **Your shipping software** wants whichever field it names, and software labels are not regulation labels. Most mismatches start here.

## The four AES filing numbers

An EEI filing involves four numbers that are about *you and the transaction* rather than the goods. Everybody covers the first. Almost nobody covers the other three.

### 1. The ITN, the number AES gives back

The **Internal Transaction Number** is the number AES returns when it accepts your filing. It is **15 characters**, not 14:

- the letter `X`
- the acceptance date, `YYYYMMDD`
- six digits assigned by the system

So a filing accepted on August 18, 2026 comes back as `X20260818123456`. One plus eight plus six is fifteen. The "14 characters" claim circulates widely on forwarder blogs and glossary pages, and it is simply wrong: a 14 character number is a truncated one, and the carrier's system will reject it.

[15 CFR 30.7](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/15/30.7) requires the proof of filing citation on the **first page of the bill of lading, air waybill, export shipping instructions or other commercial loading documents**, clearly visible, in the form:

```
AES X20260818123456
```

Note what that list does not include: the commercial invoice. Putting the ITN there too is good practice, because it keeps the consignee's broker reading the same number as the carrier, but it is convention, not a regulatory requirement.

The [verbatim legends in Appendix B to Part 30](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/15/appendix-B_to_part_30) cover the citations that are not a plain ITN, which nobody else prints:

| Situation | What goes on the document |
|---|---|
| Ordinary predeparture filing | `AES X20260818123456` |
| Postdeparture filing (approved USPPIs only) | `AESPOST 12345678912 01/01/2026` |
| Postdeparture filed by an agent | `AESPOST 12345678912 - 987654321 01/01/2026` |
| AES was down | `AESDOWN 123456789 01/01/2026` |
| Split shipment | `AES X20170101987654 SS` |
| No filing required | `NOEEI 30.37(a)`, or whichever section applies |

The deadline for having the ITN is set by transport mode in [15 CFR 30.4](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/15/30.4): vessel, 24 hours before loading. Air, 2 hours before scheduled departure. Truck, 1 hour before the truck reaches the border. Rail, 2 hours before the train reaches the border. Mail and all other modes, 2 hours before export. Full walkthrough in [what is an ITN number](/blog/what-is-an-itn-number).

### 2. The SRN, the number you invent

This is the number behind the query "export reference number". Search that phrase and you get pages about the EU **Movement Reference Number**, an 18 character number issued by an EU customs office. If you are a US exporter filing EEI, none of it applies to you.

The US answer is the **Shipment Reference Number (SRN)**:

- **yours**, made up before you file. AES does not issue it.
- 1 to 17 letters and digits.
- **unique forever**. AES rejects a reused SRN, so a scheme with a year in it (`ACME-2026-0417`) beats a bare counter.

The SRN is how you find the filing again. Amendments, corrections and cancellations are all keyed to it, and the ITN does not change when you amend. That is the distinction people trip over: **the SRN is your number for the shipment, the ITN is the government's number for your filing about it.** One you write down before, one you receive after. Keep it on the shipment record, because [correcting a rejected filing](/blog/aes-fatal-errors-response-codes) starts by pulling it up by SRN.

### 3. The USPPI identification number, which is your EIN

**There is no separate number called an Exporter Identification Number.** The AES field is the *USPPI identification number*, and for a US business it is your **IRS Employer Identification Number**: nine digits, `NN-NNNNNNN`, with the ID number type set to EIN. Nothing to apply for beyond the EIN you already have for payroll and taxes.

Three cleanups, because all three still show up in old content:

- **Social Security Numbers are gone**, eliminated as an AES identification number by an interim final rule in 2009 and a final rule in 2010. A template asking for an SSN as the exporter ID predates that.
- **DUNS is selectable but not sufficient.** Per the AESDirect User Guide, choosing DUNS in the ID type dropdown still requires the EIN behind it, so in practice the answer is always the EIN.
- **The EIN goes in the filing, not on the paperwork.** No regulation puts it on the commercial invoice, packing list or bill of lading. Content saying it belongs on the SED is describing a form that stopped existing in 2008.

### 4. The Export Information Code, and why it is almost always OS

Lead with the sentence nobody publishes: **the Export Information Code is `OS` unless you are in one of about six specific situations.**

`OS` means "all other exports". If you sold goods to a foreign buyer and are shipping them, that is your code, on every commodity line. The EIC is a two character code reported once per line in AES step 3, saying what *kind* of export this is, a separate question from what the goods are (Schedule B) or whether they are controlled (ECCN and license code). The values come from AESTIR Appendix E, published by CBP. Table A is mandatory reporting:

| Code | Use it when |
|---|---|
| `OS` | **All other exports.** The ordinary commercial sale. This is your code |
| `OI` | All other exports, government impelled |
| `CH` | Goods donated for charity |
| `CI` | Charitable donations, government impelled |
| `CR` | Goods moving under a carnet |
| `FS` | Foreign Military Sales |
| `FI` | Foreign Military Sales, government impelled |
| `HH` | Household goods and personal effects |
| `IP` | Goods imported under a Temporary Import Bond for manufacture, now being exported |
| `IR` | Goods imported under a TIB for repair or alteration, now being exported |
| `IW` | Goods destined for international waters |
| `TE` | Temporary export, to be returned |
| `TP` | Temporary export for processing |
| `ZD` | Foreign Trade Zone reexport to Mexico |

Table B holds optional reporting codes (`GS`, `MS`, `GP`, `HV`, `IS`, `TL`, `UG`, `DD`). Table C holds codes retired in April 2004 and no longer accepted, including `LC`, `LV`, `DP`, `HR`, `DB`, `IC`, `SC`, `SR` and `SS`. An internal procedure telling you to report one of those has been wrong for twenty years.

One trap: AES restricts which EIC may pair with which license code, so an unusual EIC on a line with an ordinary `C33` can bounce the filing. Another reason the honest default is `OS`.

## The product numbers

These describe the goods rather than the transaction, and each has its own post, so this is a map rather than a repeat.

- **HS code**: the six digit international root from the World Customs Organization. Every country's classification starts here. See [what is an HS code](/blog/what-is-an-hs-code).
- **Schedule B number**: ten digits, published by the Census Bureau, used for **exports**. Filed in AES without the dots.
- **HTS number**: ten digits, published by the US International Trade Commission, used for **imports**. It may usually substitute for a Schedule B number in an export filing, except for codes on the Census list of HTS numbers not valid for AES. The first six digits of all three match; the last four diverge, which is the entire reason people file the wrong one. Detail in [Schedule B number vs HS code](/blog/schedule-b-number-vs-hs-code).
- **ECCN**: five characters from the Commerce Control List, describing export *control* rather than statistics. A category digit, a product group letter from A to E, then three digits, as in `3A001`. Structure is in [15 CFR 738.2](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/15/738.2).

The ECCN and the Schedule B number are both product codes and that is the whole of their similarity. You often report both, on the same line, for the same item. And `EAR99` is not an ECCN and not a default. It is the **conclusion** you reach after working the Order of Review and finding your item unlisted, a process BIS sets out on [classify your item](https://www.bis.gov/licensing/classify-your-item). Writing `EAR99` because nothing looked familiar is the quiet mistake of this whole area. Walkthrough in [do I need an export license](/blog/do-i-need-an-export-license).

## The authorization numbers: two fields, not one

AES has **two separate fields** here, and people fill the wrong one.

**Field one, the license type code.** Three characters from AESTIR Appendix F, mandatory on every commodity line, with no blank option. Most small exporters shipping uncontrolled goods report `C33`, meaning **No License Required**. A shipment moving on an actual BIS license reports the code for that license type instead.

**Field two, the license number or exception symbol.** What goes here is decided by field one:

- **`C33` (NLR)?** Nothing goes here. No number exists, and inventing one is worse than leaving it empty.
- **Shipping under an EAR license exception?** You report the **three letter symbol**, not a number: `LVS`, `GBS`, `TMP`, `RPL`, `GFT`, `STA`. There is no numeric license behind an exception. And an exception does not excuse you from filing: see [does a license exception mean you skip AES](/blog/ear-license-exception-aes-filing).
- **Holding an actual export license?** Report the number the issuing agency gave you. BIS returns it in SNAP-R when the license is approved and you copy it across. We deliberately print no format mask for it: no primary source publishes one, and a wrong mask is worse than none.

The authority is [15 CFR 758.1](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/15/758.1). The line to remember: **most small exporters report a code and no number at all.**

## The carrier's numbers

Three numbers come from the carrier, and the direction of travel between them is what confuses people.

- **Booking number, reported as the TRN.** The Transportation Reference Number is required for vessel shipments and optional for air, where it is the air waybill number. A carrier number that goes **into** AES.
- **Bill of lading and air waybill numbers.** Carrier defined. An air waybill number is 11 digits, `NNN-NNNNNNNN`, the first three identifying the airline. **Not AES fields** for ocean and air shipments.
- **SCAC.** The Standard Carrier Alpha Code, two to four letters (usually four) from the NMFTA, identifying the carrier in AES step 4. Ask your carrier rather than guessing.

The sentence that runs the wrong way in most people's heads: **the ITN goes onto the bill of lading. The bill of lading number does not go into AES.** The booking number does, as the TRN, and the carrier then annotates its outbound manifest with the ITN you gave it.

## Numbers that are not yours: the import side

Half the confusing numbers people bring to an export filing are import numbers, belonging to a different transaction, a different form and usually a different company.

**Entry number.** Eleven characters: a three character CBP filer code, a seven digit serial the filer chooses, and a check digit, as in `B76-0324527-8`. It goes in block 1 of CBP Form 7501, the entry summary, and identifies an **import** into the United States ([19 CFR 142.3a](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/19/142.3a)). It appears in an export filing only in the narrow in-bond case. If your buyer's broker sends you one, that is their import of your export, and you do nothing with it.

**Importer of record number.** Identifies who is legally responsible for an import entry, registered with CBP on Form 5106 under [19 CFR 24.5](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/19/24.5). For a US company it is the EIN, optionally with a two digit suffix for a division, as in `12-3456789-00`. On an export you are not the importer of record: your foreign buyer, or their agent, is.

**Manifest and outbound cargo declaration.** The carrier's declaration of what is on board, under [19 CFR 4.63](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/19/4.63) for vessels. Carrier obligation, not yours, and CBP's electronic export manifest programme is still a voluntary pilot. Your only contribution is handing over the ITN in time. A carrier asking for "the manifest number" means the booking or bill of lading reference on their own document.

## Retired terms, and foreign ones

### There is no SED number

The **Shipper's Export Declaration**, Commerce Form 7525-V, was a paper form, removed by a Census Bureau final rule at **73 FR 31548**, published June 2 2008, **effective July 2 2008**, implemented **September 30 2008**, so that, in the rule's own framing, AES would be the only mode for filing. Read it on [govinfo](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2008-06-02/pdf/E8-12133.pdf).

That was more than eighteen years ago, and pages walking through boxes 1a to 30 of the SED still rank, some carrying recent update stamps. Ignore them. The lineage: the SED was the paper form, the **EEI** is the electronic filing that replaced it, the **ITN** is the receipt. When somebody asks for your "SED number", give them the ITN.

### The foreign vocabulary

Several of these searches come from a US exporter whose overseas buyer asked for something with an unfamiliar name.

- **Approved exporter authorisation number** and **REX number** are EU instruments. A Member State customs authority authorises a company to self certify preferential origin, and the REX number takes the form of the country's ISO code, the letters `REX`, then a national identifier. The United States is not among the registering territories, so a US company holds neither. There is also no `EUREX` prefix, whatever a template may show.
- **"Customs authorization number"** is not a US number at all. The phrase is lifted from the EU invoice declaration model text, where it means the approved exporter's authorisation number, so a buyer using it is asking for something you structurally cannot have. Ask which document it goes on: the answer is usually the ITN, or a signed origin statement.
- **Export permit numbers** come from other countries. Canada issues them under the Export and Import Permits Act, Singapore through TradeNet. The United States issues export **licenses**, from BIS, DDTC and a handful of others, plus narrow permit regimes such as DEA and wildlife. We print no formats for foreign permit numbers, because the ones circulating are unsourced.

One honest sentence for everything else in this family: Form E, Export General Manifest, export permit numbers, approved exporter numbers and REX numbers are foreign jurisdiction terms, and if you are a US exporter, none of them apply to you.

## Quick answers

### What is an export reference number?

The Shipment Reference Number, which you create yourself: one to seventeen letters and digits, unique, never reused, entered in AES step 1 and used to retrieve or amend the filing. If your search returned an 18 character MRN, that is the EU Movement Reference Number and it belongs to EU customs, not a US export filing.

### What is an exporter identification number?

Your EIN. There is no separate number by that name. In AES the field is the USPPI identification number, and a US business enters its nine digit IRS Employer Identification Number with the ID type set to EIN. It goes in the filing only, not on the invoice or bill of lading.

### What is an export declaration number?

The ITN, the 15 character number AES returns on accepting your Electronic Export Information filing, written on the loading documents as `AES` followed by the number. Detail in [what is an ITN number](/blog/what-is-an-itn-number).

### What is the ITN number format?

`X` plus the eight digit acceptance date plus six system digits, 15 characters in total, as in `X20260818123456`. Not 14.

### What is an export information code?

A two character code on each AES commodity line describing the type of export. For an ordinary commercial sale it is `OS`. The full list is AESTIR Appendix E, summarized in the table above.

### What is an approved exporter number?

An EU authorisation number that lets a company self certify preferential origin. A US company cannot hold one. A buyer asking for it most likely needs a signed origin statement, which for North America is the [USMCA certification](/blog/usmca-certification-of-origin) you sign yourself.

### What is a customs authorization number?

No US export number carries that name. The phrase comes from EU invoice declaration wording. Ask which document it is needed on, and supply the ITN or an origin statement instead.

### What is a SED number?

There is not one. The Shipper's Export Declaration was retired by 73 FR 31548, effective July 2 2008, implemented September 30 2008. The modern equivalent is the ITN.

### What is an export permit number?

A foreign concept in almost every case: Canada, Singapore and others issue export permits, while the United States issues export licenses. Asked for a permit number on a US export, the real question is whether you need a [license](/blog/do-i-need-an-export-license), and most small exporters do not.

## The pattern underneath all of it

Two numbers you create (the SRN and your own invoice reference). One you already have (the EIN). One the government hands back (the ITN). A few that describe the goods, two code fields for authority, three from the carrier, and a handful that belong to somebody else's transaction.

The mistakes are rarely intellectual. They are transcription: the ITN pasted 14 characters long, the SRN reused from last year so the filing bounces, the Schedule B number typed with dots into a field that wants ten digits, the legend written on the invoice but not the bill of lading.

[ExportDocsHub](/) exists for that layer. Enter the shipment once (parties, goods, Schedule B, value, Incoterm) and the numbers land on every document from the same field instead of being retyped into each one. The ITN or the NOEEI legend cannot be silently blank, because it is one field feeding several documents. If you would rather reconcile these numbers once than three times per shipment, [start a free trial](https://exportdocshub.com/sign-up). No credit card required.

None of this is a classification or licensing determination: your ECCN, destination and parties are yours to establish, and a licensed customs broker or export counsel is the right call when the answer is not obvious.

---

**Further reading**

- Cornell LII: [15 CFR 30.7, annotating commercial documents with proof of filing citations](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/15/30.7)
- Cornell LII: [15 CFR 30.6, data elements required for the EEI](https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/15/30.6)
- Census: [the ITN, trade term of the month](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/global-reach/2012/05/itn-trade-term-of-the-month.html)
- Census: [decoding the shipment reference number](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/blogs/global-reach/2011/03/decoding-the-srn.html)
- govinfo: [73 FR 31548, the rule that retired the SED](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2008-06-02/pdf/E8-12133.pdf)

**Related on this site**

- [What is an ITN number? The 15 characters that prove your export was declared](/blog/what-is-an-itn-number)
- [NOEEI exemption codes: the complete list for small US exporters](/blog/noeei-exemption-codes)
- [Do I need to file EEI in AES? A decision guide for small US exporters](/blog/do-i-need-to-file-eei-in-aes)
- [AES fatal errors: what each response code means and how to fix it](/blog/aes-fatal-errors-response-codes)
- [Schedule B number vs HS code: which one you need](/blog/schedule-b-number-vs-hs-code)

*Written by [Anas Marwan](/authors/anas-n), Co-founder of Darza Technologies. Last reviewed 2026-09-09.*

---

Source: https://exportdocshub.com/blog/export-declaration-numbers (https://exportdocshub.com)