My family and I are relocating to the US, but not together. My wife and kids are US citizens, but I'm not, so I'm waiting on a work permit and will join later. They will live with family in MN pending my arrival.

However, in a few months, I have a work meeting in D.C. I'm flying out there on my own, and my family are going to then join me there, and from there, fly onto MSP. They have a one-way ticket to WAS and then onto MSP.

My question is, since they are relocating, what does this mean for taking in personal possessions/ goods that exceed customs duty declaration limits. Specifically, my wife has several pieces of jewellery that definitely exceed $2000 in value, but they aren't one or two pieces that she could just wear. The vast majority of these pieces were aquired in the US when we used to live there, and we brought them with us in our hand baggage when we moved to China. Obviously, we're not going to be putting the items in with e.g. our furniture that will be shipped by sea freight and want to bring them in on hand baggage again.

We asked our shipping agent, and they were clueless. They aren't "monetary instruments", so wouldn't need declaring from that point of view. And they aren't, strictly speaking, goods aquired overseas that would stay in the US, but we have no documentary evidence of such...

I'm pretty sure that when relocating, "household goods and personal effects" are exempt from duty, but I can't seem to find any forms online.

I'll be doing lots of back and forth, but since the items are jewellery, I am concerned that I will have even less of a leg to stand on if I try to bring the items in bit by bit...

To further (slightly) complicate matters, they are flying into ORD and connecting to WAS, and their connection is only a couple of hours. So I want them to "forewarned and forearmed" to avoid a lengthy inspection that might make them lose their connection.

Advice/ pointers appreciated.

tb