If your baggage is checked through to your final destination, that's where you clear customs. If you're collecting your baggage and checking in to your next flight yourself, you need to pass through customs at Heathrow.
When do you go through customs on international flights? Usually, you go through customs when you exit the airport at your final destination. However, if you have a layover in a different city in your destination country, you may need to go through customs before your connecting flight.
Customs and immigration are usually required at the connecting airport for international flights. You don't always have to for domestic flights. In most cases, passengers on layover flights must clear customs and immigration at the first point of entry.
Baggage claim is usually after customs when a person arrives from an international flight at an airport. This is because customs is responsible for inspecting the items that you are bringing into the country, and they need to do this before you can collect your luggage.
Upon arrival, go through the immigration and passport control area of the airport. Passengers are split into multiple lines. There is generally a line for host country nationals (people with a passport from that country), sometimes a line for citizens of the region (EU, ECOWAS, etc), and non-immigrant visitors.
When you have your luggage, you must pass through customs. There will be 3 routes through customs control: Green channel: if you have nothing to declare and you have travelled from outside of the EU. Blue channel: if your journey started within the EU and you have nothing to declare.
After Customs you'll walk through a World Duty Free shop and then find yourself in the arrivals hall. The arrivals hall can be very crowded with lots of people waiting to greet arriving passengers. If you have flown in from another UK airport you will not need to go through Passport Control.
You will be asked to declare to a U.S. Customs Inspector what you have brought into the U.S. You may have to open your luggage to Customs Officers before it goes through the scanning machines. Customs Officers will also ask from you verbally what you have in your luggage.
Trusted Traveler Program EnrollmentGlobal Entry is a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) program that allows expedited clearance for pre-approved, low-risk travelers upon arrival in the United States. Members enter the United States by accessing the Global Entry processing technology at selected airports.
Customs and immigration are usually required at the connecting airport for international flights. You don't always have to for domestic flights. In most cases, passengers on layover flights must clear customs and immigration at the first point of entry.
My normal arrival time is 1:30 and after de-boarding, the 15 minute walk to immigration, a short wait and processing and then the walk through customs and into the arrival area takes around an additional 15/25 minutes. The walk to the Express takes 5/10 minutes followed by as much as a 15 minute wait.