TL;DR

Trava helps US importers recover overpaid duties, protect margin, and classify products accurately even as tariff rules change constantly. If you oversee finance or trade compliance, talk to us. We can help you recover up to 10% of duties paid this year.

https://youtu.be/6lKXDCIQj8k

Problem

US importers have paid over $200B in duties in 2025, an all-time high. A significant share of that is overpaid, and most of them never realize it.

Two shifts explain why this is accelerating:

1. Tariff volatility has exploded. Duty rates and HTS rules now change constantly. In 2025 alone, there’s been a wave of Section 301 updates, Section 232 expansions, new IEEPA/fentanyl tariffs, reciprocal tariffs, and more. The systems importers rely on were built for a more stable trade environment and can’t keep up.
2. “De minimis” rollback is exposing millions of new SKUs to duties. Brands that never paid duties before now need accurate HTS codes for every SKU, often with no internal expertise, dramatically increasing classification volume and the risk of costly errors.

The combined effect: filing errors and misclassifications are more common than ever, leading to margin leakage, missed refunds, and rising audit exposure.

And today’s mitigations fall short:

• Large importers hire expensive consultants who audit filings only after duties are paid, tying up cash for months and missing most issues because they review only a small sample.
• Many lean on their customs brokers, who are incentivized to clear shipments quickly, not optimize duty burden, find refunds or classify goods. And capacity is shrinking, as the workforce is aging and fewer new brokers enter the field.

Importers carry the liability but are flying blind — overpaying duties and holding compliance risk they can’t see.

Solution

Trava gives importers a system that continuously reviews 100% of their customs entries and product catalog for duty and classification accuracy.

Importers see three core benefits:

1. Recover margin by surfacing overpaid duties and missed refunds. Once integrated, Trava often prevents the overpayment entirely by catching issues before duties are even paid.
2. Reduce exposure by flagging underpayments and risky classifications before they turn into penalties because of a surprise CBP audit.
3. Classify accurately with a copilot that suggests correct HTS codes on every SKU, critical as rules change constantly and millions of products lose de minimis protection.

AI handles the heavy lifting, and Trava’s trade specialists validate edge cases and final outputs.

Team

Pushkar was an engineering manager at Plaid, where he led Privacy & Risk Engineering and built compliance systems that scaled to thousands of customers and millions of consumers. Before that, he was an early engineer on Meta’s crypto/fintech team (Libra/Novi) building digital payments infrastructure.

He’s seen firsthand how compliance breaks under scale and regulatory volatility, and how automation with human oversight can turn it into an advantage. He’s now bringing that same approach to the world of trade compliance.

Our Ask

Message pushkar@usetrava.com or visit usetrava.com to request early access.

1. Importers: We’re running a limited number of year-end duty and classification audits. If you oversee the P&L or compliance, we’ll show you exactly how much margin you’re leaving on the table, and help you classify products correctly.
2. Customs Brokers / Trade Consultants / Trade Attorneys: We’re open to partnerships. Use Trava to offer deeper audits and classifications as a service to your importer clients.

Intros welcome! If you know CFOs, compliance leaders, or brokers who’d benefit from this, an intro means a lot.