When Bonded Warehouses Make Sense

Tariffs on Chinese goods hit 125% in April 2025. Then dropped to 47% after negotiations. 

If you had goods sitting in bonded storage during that swing, you just saved $78,000 on a $100,000 container.

That's why everyone's scrambling to understand bonded warehouses right now. The mechanism has been around for over a century, but 2025's tariff chaos made it suddenly relevant.

Here's the straightforward pitch: move goods into bonded storage, and you pay tariffs based on the rate when you withdraw them, not when they arrive. If tariffs drop while your shipment sits there, you pay the lower rate. If tariffs stay high, you can re-export without ever paying U.S. duties. And if you're cash-strapped, you're deferring that duty payment until you actually need the inventory.

Sounds great. But here's what many operators miss: bonded warehouses aren't a universal solution. They work exceptionally well for specific use cases and become expensive overhead for others.

I talked to Evan De Wolfe and Daniel Lee at Dimerco about when bonded warehousing actually makes sense versus when it's just expensive theater. 

Dimerco has operated in San Francisco for 45 years and just opened a 42,000 sq-ft customs-bonded facility near SFO. Evan and Daniel are seeing the current scramble up close: companies rushing into bonded warehousing based on tariff headlines without understanding if it fits their operations.

Here's how to figure out if it makes sense for you.

What's Inside:

• Does this even apply to you?

• The three most common scenarios where this works

  • Scenario 1: E-commerce operator managing inventory timing

  • Scenario 2: Moving goods cross-border to Mexico or Canada

  • Scenario 3: Bleeding demurrage costs at terminals

• The cost reality check

  • Security requirements and supply constraints

  • The geography premium

  • Making the geography decision

• The paperwork complexity

  • The tariff recalculation complexity

• Mistakes that make this expensive theater

  • Mistake 1: Using long-term storage at major gateways

  • Mistake 2: Using bonded warehousing to delay fixing upstream problems

  • Mistake 3: Choosing bonded warehouse when you need Foreign Trade Zone

• Your action plan

  • Step 1: Confirm you're in a clear use case

  • Step 2: Run your specific numbers

  • Step 3: Audit your documentation before shipping

  • Step 4: Choose geography based on duration and access

  • Step 5: Partner with customs broker with proven bonded expertise

  • Step 6: Set up quarterly reviews