Definition
The act of sending or carrying goods and merchandise out of one country into another. Exportation is the physical and commercial movement of property across national boundaries, typically in the course of trade. It is the counterpart to importation.
In constitutional and customs law, the term carries a more precise meaning: exportation is complete, and goods are considered "exported," when the vessel or conveyance has departed the domestic port or border for a foreign destination. This temporal precision matters for determining when duties, licenses, and regulatory obligations attach or expire.
Common Language
Modern common usage (Wiktionary): "The act of exporting; the act of conveying or sending commodities abroad or to another country, in the course of commerce."
Historical common usage (Webster's 1913): "The act of exporting; the act of conveying or sending commodities abroad or to another country, in the course of commerce."
Editorial note: Common and legal meanings are closely aligned in their core sense, but the legal term carries constitutional weight and technical precision that ordinary usage does not. In common speech, exportation is simply sending goods abroad. In law, the moment exportation occurs — and whether a particular shipment qualifies as an export — can determine constitutional protections, exemption from federal duties, and the applicability of export control regimes. The casual sense does not capture these legal stakes.
Why It Matters in Research
The constitutional dimension is essential context for any historical research. Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution prohibits Congress from laying a tax or duty on "articles exported from any state," and Article I, Section 10 restricts states from imposing export duties without congressional consent. Historical cases and treatises addressing exportation frequently turn on this constitutional prohibition, and researchers should expect to find exportation treated as a constitutional term of art in 19th-century materials, not merely a commercial descriptor.
The moment of exportation is a recurring analytical problem in historical sources. Burrill notes that the day of sailing from a foreign port toward the United States is treated as the period of exportation for purposes of duty calculations — a point that matters when tracing valuation disputes, tariff litigation, or customs fraud cases in the corpus. Different rules governed when exportation was complete for domestic shipments outbound versus goods in transit.
Modern researchers must distinguish between the historical customs-and-duties framework and the current export control regime. Contemporary exportation questions are frequently governed by the Export Administration Regulations (EAR), administered by the Bureau of Industry and Security, and by OFAC sanctions programs. These modern frameworks introduce licensing requirements, end-user controls, and deemed export rules (sharing controlled technology with foreign nationals inside the United States) that have no analog in classical common law treatments of exportation. Historical dictionary entries will not reflect these layers.
Jurisdictional variation is limited at the constitutional level — the federal government has primary authority over foreign commerce — but state law may intersect with intrastate movement of goods destined for export. Researchers tracking disputes about whether goods had entered the export stream (and thus acquired constitutional protection from state interference) will find this a productive and contested area in 19th-century sources.
Historical Dictionary Support
The historical dictionaries converge on a clean, consistent core definition: exportation is the act of sending or carrying goods and merchandise from one country to another. Black's (both editions), Bouvier's, Rapalje & Lawrence, and Burrill's all substantially agree on this formulation. There is no meaningful divergence on the basic definition.
Bouvier's goes furthest in situating the term constitutionally, explicitly quoting the Article I, Section 9 prohibition on export duties and gesturing toward the commerce clause implications. This reflects Bouvier's characteristic orientation toward constitutional framing, and researchers using Bouvier's as a primary source will find more doctrinal scaffolding than in the other entries.
Burrill's is notable for the specific procedural point about the timing of exportation — tying it to the sailing date — which suggests the term had genuine operational significance in customs litigation and was not merely definitional. The citation to 20 Howard's Reports places this in mid-19th century federal practice.
What the historical dictionaries collectively miss: the modern export control apparatus, including dual-use goods regulation, deemed exports, and sanctions compliance, is entirely absent. They also do not address services exportation, software and technology transfers, or the regulatory complexity introduced by the Export Administration Act and its successors. Researchers should treat historical entries as reliable for the customs, duties, and constitutional dimensions, and turn to current regulatory sources for everything else.
Jurisdictional Note
Foreign commerce, including exportation, falls primarily within federal jurisdiction under the Commerce Clause. State authority to regulate or tax exports is sharply curtailed by Article I, Section 10. Modern export control law is almost entirely federal, with overlapping authority between the Department of Commerce (BIS), the Department of the Treasury (OFAC), and the Department of State (DDTC for defense articles under ITAR).
Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
International — Sanctions and Export Controls (OFAC, EAR), Law Mind Business Organizations & Corporate Law Encyclopedia