CLEARANCE - The Law Mind Legal Dictionary

CLEARANCEAuthored

The Law Mind • 1147 words

Definition

CLEARANCE has two primary legal meanings, each operating in distinct regulatory contexts.

1. Maritime/Customs Clearance. A certificate issued by the collector of customs at a port authorizing an outward-bound vessel to depart. It certifies that the vessel's master has complied with applicable customs and health laws — including proper entry, declaration of cargo, and payment of duties — and that the ship is legally permitted to sail. The document is issued to the master and serves as official government authorization for departure. A vessel departing without clearance is subject to seizure and other penalties under federal customs law.

2. Security Clearance. Authorization granted by a government authority permitting an individual to access classified, restricted, or sensitive information. The clearance level (typically Confidential, Secret, or Top Secret in U.S. federal practice) determines the category of information the holder may access. Security clearance decisions involve background investigations, adjudication of trustworthiness, and ongoing review. In administrative and employment law, denial or revocation of a security clearance raises procedural due process questions and has generated substantial litigation over the limited judicial review available to affected individuals.

A third, narrower usage appears in commercial and banking contexts: clearance or clearing refers to the process by which financial instruments (checks, securities trades) are processed, verified, and settled between institutions. This usage is closely related to the term CLEARING and is typically covered there.

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Common Language

Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "A permission for a vehicle to proceed, or for a person to travel"; also the physical gap between two objects, as between a vehicle and the walls of a tunnel; and permission to access sensitive information.

Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "A certificate that a ship or vessel has been cleared at the customhouse; permission to sail." Also noted as meaning clear or net profit in informal commercial usage.

The common meanings are not far from the legal ones, but the gap matters at the margins. In everyday speech, "clearance" often implies a simple go-ahead — informal permission. In law, maritime clearance and security clearance are formal, documented authorizations carrying specific legal consequences for their absence or revocation. The physical gap meaning (tunnel clearance, machine clearance) has no legal analog. Researchers encountering "clearance" in older commercial texts should also be alert to the net-profit usage, which has no modern legal survival.

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Recognized Forms

/SUBTYPES

Maritime clearance: The classical legal meaning; the outward clearance certificate from the customs collector.

Inward clearance: Though less frequently discussed in the historical dictionaries, vessels arriving at port are also subject to entry and inspection requirements before cargo may be unloaded; the completion of this process is sometimes called inward clearance.

Security clearance: The dominant modern legal usage in administrative and national security law; subcategories track the federal classification system (Confidential, Secret, Top Secret, and special access programs above TS).

Clearance sale / title clearance: Used in real property and commercial contexts to mean the removal of encumbrances or clouds on title. This is functionally distinct from the maritime and security meanings and connects more naturally to the terms CLOUD ON TITLE and QUIET TITLE.

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Why It Matters in Research

The term bifurcates sharply across time and subject matter. Researchers in pre-twentieth-century maritime and admiralty materials will encounter clearance almost exclusively in the customs certificate sense. It appears frequently in cases involving vessel seizure, smuggling, revenue enforcement, and prize law. The historical dictionaries are largely consistent here and reliable guides.

The security clearance meaning is entirely modern — it postdates the historical dictionaries by decades and will not appear in Black's, Bouvier's, Rapalje & Lawrence, or Burrill's. Researchers approaching administrative law, employment law, or national security law must work entirely from modern sources. The judicial review question — whether and how courts may review security clearance denials — is a live and contested area; older administrative law secondary sources may not reflect current doctrine.

A third trap: financial clearance and securities clearing are sometimes loosely called "clearance" in older banking and commercial texts. The Law Mind corpus may index these under CLEARING or CLEARINGHOUSE rather than CLEARANCE. Check both headings when researching payment systems or negotiable instruments.

In statutes, the federal Tariff Act and its predecessors use "clearance" as a term of art with specific procedural requirements. References to clearance in nineteenth-century federal cases almost certainly mean the customs certificate, not security authorization.

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Historical Dictionary Support

The historical sources present unusual uniformity. Black's (both editions), Bouvier's, Rapalje & Lawrence, Anderson's, and Burrill's all define clearance identically in substance: a certificate from the customs collector certifying legal compliance and authorizing departure. Bouvier's is the most detailed, specifying that the certificate names the master, the vessel, the destination, and (when the master requests) the cargo particulars. Rapalje & Lawrence adds the practical point that the clearance serves as the authority for departure from port — not merely a record of compliance.

None of the historical sources acknowledge any meaning beyond the maritime customs certificate. The security clearance meaning, the financial clearing meaning, and the physical-gap meaning are all absent. This is not a deficiency in the historical dictionaries — it is an accurate reflection of how limited the term's legal application was through the nineteenth century. Modern researchers relying on these sources for anything beyond maritime customs law will find them unhelpful.

Webster's 1913 aligns closely with the legal sources on the maritime meaning, which suggests the term had not yet fragmented into its modern range of uses by the turn of the twentieth century.

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Jurisdictional Note

Maritime clearance requirements in the United States are governed by federal law and administered through U.S. Customs and Border Protection; state law plays no role. Security clearance is likewise a creature of federal executive authority. Title clearance practices, however, vary by state, as they track each jurisdiction's recording acts, lien laws, and title insurance customs.

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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference

See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Maritime Law (for customs clearance requirements and vessel seizure)
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Customs and Revenue (for the administrative framework of port clearance)
See Law Mind Encyclopedia — Security Clearances (for administrative adjudication and judicial review of clearance decisions)

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CLEARANCEmain

Black's Law Dictionary • 1891

In maritime law. A document in the nature of a certificate given by the collector of customs to an outward- bound vessel, to the effect that she has com- CLERICI, ETC. plied with the law, and is duly authorized to depart.

CLEARANCEmain

Bouvier's Law Dictionary • 1928

A certificate given by the collector of a port, in which it is stated that the master or commander (naming him) of a ship or vessel named and described, bound for a port named (and having on board goods described, in case the master requires the particulars of his cargo to be stated in such clearance), has entered and cleared his ship or vessel according to law. This certificate, or clearance, evidences the right of the vessel to depart on her voyage; and clearance has therefore been properly defined as a permission to sail. The same term is also used to signify the act of clearing. Worcester, Dict. The sixteenth section of the act of August 18, 1856 (R. S. § 4207), regulating the diplo- matic and consular systems of the United States, makes it the duty of the collector of the customs whenever any clearance is granted to any ship or vessel of the United States, duly registered as such, and bound on any foreign voyage, to annex thereto, in every case, a copy of the rates or tariff of fees which shall be allowed in pursuance of the provisions of that act. The act of congress of 2d March, 1799, section 93 (R. S. § 4197), directs that the master of any vessel bound to a foreign port or place shall deliver to the collector of the district from which such vessel shall be about to depart a manifest of all the cargo on board, and the value thereof, by him subscribed, and shall swear or affirm to the truth thereof; whereupon the collector shall grant a clearance for such vessel and her cargo, but without specifying the par- ticulars thereof in such clearance, unless required by the master so to do. And if any vessel bound to any foreign place shall depart on her voyage to such foreign place without delivering such a manifest and ob- taining a clearance, the master shall forfeit and pay the sum of five hundred dollars for every such offence; provided, that the collectors and other officers of the customs shall pay due regard to the inspection laws of the states in which they respectively act, in such manner that no vessel having on board goods liable to inspection shall be cleared out until the master or other person shall have produced such certificate, that all such goods have been duly inspected, as the laws of the respective states do or may require to be produced to the collector or other officer of the customs; and provided, that receipts for the payment of all legal fees which shall have accrued on any vessel shall, before any clearance is granted, be produced to the collector or other officer aforesaid. The 11th section of the act of February 10, 1820 (R. S. § 4200) provides that, before a clearance shall be granted for any vessel bound to a foreign place, the owners, ship- pers, or consignors of the cargo on board of such vessel shall deliver to the collector manifests of the cargo, or the parts thereof shipped by them respectively, and shall verify the same by oath or affirmation; and such mamiests shall specify the kinds and quantities of the articles shipped by them respectively, and the value of the total quantity of each kind of articles; and such oath or affirmation shall state that such manifest contains a full, just, and true account of all articles laden on board of such vessel by the owners, ship- pers, or consignors respectively, and that the values of such articles are truly stated according to their actual cost or the values which they truly bear at the port and time of exportation. And, before a clearance shall be granted for any such vessel, the master of every such vessel, and the owners, shippers, and consignors of the cargo shall state, upon oath or affirmation, to the collector, the foreign place or country in which such cargo is truly intended to be landed; and the said oath or affirmation shall be taken and subscribed in writing. According to Boulay-Paty, Dr. Com. t. 2. p. 19, the clearance is imperatively de- manded for the safety of the vessel; for if a vessel should be found without it at sea it may be legally taken and brought into some court for adjudication on a charge of piracy. See SHIP'S PAPERS.

CLEARANCEmain

Rapalje & Lawrence • 1888

-A certificate that a ship has been examined and cleared at the custom-house. It is given by the collector of the port to the master of the vessel, and is authority for her departure from the port. See 3 Taunt. 554. ment.

CLEARANCEn.

Websters Unabridged Dictionary (1913) • 1913

The act of clearing; as, to make a through clearance. A certificate that a ship or vessel has been cleared at the customhouse; permission to sail. Every ship was subject to seizure for want of stamped clearances. Durke Clear or net profit. Trollope. The distance by which one object clears another, as the distance between the piston and cylinder head at the end of a stroke in a steam engine, or the least distance between the point of a cogwell tooth and the bottom of a space between teeth of a wheel with which it engages. Clearance space (Steam engine), the space inclosed in one end of the cylinder, between the valve or valves and the piston, at the beginning of a stroke; waste room. It includes the space caused by the piston's clearance and the space in ports, passageways, etc. Its volume is often expressed as a certain proportion of the volume swept by the piston in a single stroke.

clearancenoun

Wiktionary (English) • 2026

Wiktionary contributors • CC BY-SA 4.0 • via Kaikki
Extracted and formatted for display by Law Mind. Source link opens the current Wiktionary page and its contributor history; it is not a frozen copy of this extract.

The act of clearing or something (such as a space) cleared. | The distance between two moving objects, especially between parts of a machine | The height or width of a tunnel, bridge or other passage, or the distance between a vehicle and the walls or roof of such passage; a gap, headroom. | A permission for a vehicle to proceed, or for a person to travel. | A permission to have access to sensitive or secret documents or other information. | A permission to use something, usually intellectual property, that is legally, but not otherwise, protected. | A sale of merchandise, especially at significantly reduced prices, usually in order to make room for new merchandise or updated versions of the same merchandise; sometimes as a closeout. | The settlement of transactions involving securities or means of payment such as checks by means of a clearing house. | The removal of harmful substances from the blood; renal clearance. | The act of potting all the remaining balls on a table at one visit. | The act of kicking a ball away from the goal one is defending. | Removal of pieces from a rank, file or diagonal so that a bishop, rook or queen is free to move along it. | Clear or net profit. | The first disposal in a chain that leaves the area of a stoppage, or a disposal that leaves the area of a stoppage itself. | The act of leaving the area of a stoppage.

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