Howard County has received approval from the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Foreign Trade Zones Board to be included in the service area of Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ) No. 74 as part of a recent expansion. FTZ No. 74, which is administered by the Baltimore Development Corp. (BDC), already included Baltimore City and the Maryland counties of Baltimore, Harford, Cecil and Anne Arundel. As part of the expansion, Queen Anne’s County was also added to the area.

FTZs are designated areas where international goods can be stored and fabricated [while deferring certain taxes], but are still considered part of international commerce. Goods are not subject to U.S. taxes or duties until transferred to the U.S. market outside of FTZ designated areas; companies are allowed to build, manufacture, manipulate components into finished products for U.S. sale or re-export.

The BDC prepared FTZ No. 74’s expansion request to the FTZ Board and U.S. Customs Border Protection (CBP) in conjunction with Howard and Queen Anne’s County’s economic development leadership to meet the growing requests from existing industry. Baltimore’s FTZ No. 74 is one of four zones in Maryland and is the most active, with 18 operators managing facilities supporting 193 warehouse/distribution companies throughout the existing service area.

According to a report issued by the Foreign Trade Zones Board, Maryland ranked eighth in FTZ merchandise received, with FTZ No.74 directly supporting more than 750 jobs across the service area.