Gallup Pushes for Foreign Trade Zone, Customs Status at Airport
GGEDC announced a 2025 initiative to secure Foreign Trade Zone status and a U.S. Customs User Fee Airport designation for Gallup Municipal Airport, aiming to position the city as an inland logistics and manufacturing hub. If successful, the move could make Gallup more attractive to exporters, reduce trade frictions and spur local investment in airport infrastructure and jobs.
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The Greater Gallup economic development group GGEDC outlined plans this year for a 2025 push to obtain two federal trade designations for Gallup Municipal Airport: Foreign Trade Zone (FTZ) status and designation as a U.S. Customs User Fee Airport. The effort centers on renovating airport facilities to meet U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) requirements and on securing a stationed CBP officer who could clear international cargo and passengers at the airport.
These designations are intended to support an inland TradePort strategy being advanced by GGEDC, which seeks to make Gallup more competitive in logistics and light manufacturing. An FTZ would allow businesses to defer customs duties and streamline customs handling for goods brought into the zone, while a User Fee Airport designation would enable CBP to provide on-site customs processing funded through user fees rather than routine CBP allocations. Together, the designations are aimed at reducing friction for cross-border trade and attracting firms that rely on efficient import-export operations.
Practical steps on the agenda include airport renovations to satisfy CBP infrastructure and security standards and formal applications to federal authorities in 2025. A stationed CBP officer at Gallup Municipal Airport would be a key operational milestone, allowing customs clearance locally rather than routing shipments through more distant ports of entry. Those operational changes would also reshape logistics patterns in McKinley County by shortening clearance times and lowering the effective cost of doing international business from the region.
For local residents, the move could have measurable economic implications. Improved customs capability at the airport would make Gallup more attractive to distribution centers, third-party logistics providers and small manufacturers considering nearshoring or regional warehousing. Such investments typically translate into construction activity, recurring operations employment, and broader demand for local services. The airport upgrades themselves would also require local contracting and public coordination around zoning, utilities and transportation links.
Policy considerations will be central to the push; GGEDC must coordinate approvals with CBP and other federal agencies, finance capital improvements to meet regulatory standards, and ensure that user-fee arrangements are sustainable for expected traffic. Long-term, the plan aligns with wider economic trends favoring inland trade nodes as firms reconfigure supply chains and seek to shorten transit times and inventory costs.
The success of the initiative will hinge on federal approvals, the timeline and scale of airport renovations, and follow-through from private investors. For McKinley County, the proposal represents a strategic attempt to diversify the local economy by leveraging the municipal airport as a platform for trade and manufacturing growth.
