International Business

The Greater Rochester, NY Region is strategically located in the Finger Lakes Region of Western NY on route I-90, with close proximity to major northeast trading centers such as Boston, New York City, Philadelphia, Toronto, and Washington, DC. 

On a per capita basis, the Rochester metro is among the top 30 major metropolitan exporting regions in the country. New York State ranked fourth in 2015 among top exporting states, behind only Texas, California, and Washington. The Greater Rochester, NY region accounts for 5.8% of all New York State exports, making it the second largest exporting region in the state after New York City. (source: Brookings Institution)

Within the Rochester Region, businesses located in Monroe County, Genesee County,  Ontario County, Wayne County, Yates County, Seneca County, and Livingston County can utilize foreign trade zones (FTZs) to better manage their global supply chain costs. 

Foreign Trade Zones offer the following benefits:

• Elimination of duties on items exported directly from FTZ
• Elimination of duty drawback
• Reduction of duties/tariff inversion - allowing for the payment of duties on final products versus raw materials components
• Quota handling
• Reduction of weekly entry
• Duty deferral - duty only assessed when entered into commerce
• Less initial cash outlay
• Partial draw allowing you to use only what you need
• No time limit on merchandise to be stored in the FTZ

Try this Duty Savings Estimator Worksheet for FTZ Production to see if a Foreign Trade Zone can save your company money.

Rochester is a Port of Entry, managing more than 7,000 import transactions per year with lower fees and shorter clearance times than East Coast ports, including New York City. All types of transactions are managed through this port from small packages to multi-million machinery.

As a mid-sized city, we have an average clearance time of 2 hours. This provides local companies with significant time and money savings when compared with New York City's clearance time of up to 72 hours. In addition, our entry fees are much lower than major East Coast ports such as New York City or Boston.