Background
Grantees serve as foundational pillars of the U.S. Foreign-Trade Zones (FTZ) program, playing an indispensable role in its operation and growth. Every company’s FTZ application is channeled through these designated entities, which act as facilitators of zone establishment and expansion. Beyond their administrative responsibilities, grantees are also strategic champions of the FTZ program, actively promoting its benefits as part of their broader mission to drive regional economic development, attract investment and enhance global competitiveness.
Their efforts not only ensure regulatory compliance and program integrity but also help unlock new opportunities for businesses seeking to streamline supply chains, reduce costs and expand international trade. In essence, grantees are the connective tissue between federal policy and local economic ambition, making them vital to the success and sustainability of the FTZ ecosystem.
Today’s Challenges
Grantees operate at the intersection of economic development, port administration and regional strategy, often juggling a wide array of responsibilities that demand both breadth and depth of expertise. Given this complex landscape, many grantees face significant constraints in time, staffing and technical capacity. As a result, their ability to fully engage with FTZ initiatives, whether through proactive marketing, program management or timely responses to prospective FTZ users, is often limited.
These constraints can lead to missed opportunities in deploying the FTZ program more broadly and effectively across the U.S. More critically, they hinder the grantee’s ability to integrate FTZ goals into larger strategic frameworks, such as attracting foreign direct investment, crafting creative incentive packages and advancing regional competitiveness. Without adequate support and resources, the FTZ program risks becoming an underutilized tool in the economic development arsenal despite its potential to deliver transformative impact.
From a practical standpoint, grantees should be working closely with their state and local economic development partners, so they have a seat at the table when companies are undertaking economic development site searches. FTZ grantees should be educating their economic development partners as to what types of operations can benefit most from locating an FTZ, that way grantees can be brought into those site selection conversations where an FTZ can be most impactful to a site selection decision. Taking this collaborative and strategic approach should result in greater opportunities to grow their FTZ program and enhance their regional economy.
How We Help Grantees
Several members of our team have served as grantees, both directly and on an outsourced basis, giving us firsthand insight into the day-to-day challenges faced by grantees and others in the economic development community as they navigate this complex program.
Our tailored support ranges from being an on-call resource for FTZ-related questions to developing comprehensive marketing and multiyear operational strategies. Examples of our direct support to the grantee community include:
- Development of marketing materials
- Website enhancements
- Targeted industry outreach
- Stakeholder engagement events
- Benchmarking and best practice studies
- Response to inquiries from prospective tenants/FTZ users
- Strategic public relations campaigns
- Preparation of application materials (FTZ Board and CBP)
- Compliance reviews (including traditional, uniform treatment and public utility)
- Creation of checklists and desktop procedures to support daily and periodic compliance
- Active involvement in associations (e.g., NAFTZ, TAFTZ) and FTZ industry events to promote and advocate for the program
Kroll’s Site Selection and Incentives Advisory Team can support those companies looking to make a site location decision where FTZ benefits are one of many considerations. Our team can help quantify projected operating costs across competing locations including netting out likely economic development incentives. We also offer full-service incentives negotiation and perform economic and fiscal impact analysis and labor studies in support of these efforts.
