Freight forwarding glossary

Agentic AI is the paradigm of artificial intelligence that autonomously pursues a goal across multiple steps and adapts as conditions change, going beyond the scripted behaviour of automation bots and virtual assistants (Gartner).

An AI agent is an autonomous software system that perceives, reasons, and acts in a digital environment to achieve goals on behalf of a human principal, using tools and integrating with other software to complete tasks with minimal human supervision.

The transport document an air carrier issues for a consignment, serving as the receipt for the goods and evidence of the contract of carriage, but never a document of title.

US Customs and Border Protection's program for advance electronic cargo-manifest filing on US-bound shipments, with ocean filings integrating with CBP's ACE (Automated Commercial Environment) portal.

The notification a carrier or its destination office sends to the consignee or other import parties, advising that a shipment is arriving and setting out the expected arrival, outstanding charges, and pickup details.

A bill of entry is the import goods declaration that the importer or customs broker files with Indian Customs, electronically via ICEGATE and ICES, to clear imported goods, lodged against the carrier's import general manifest, and it is the import counterpart of the shipping bill.

The transport document a carrier issues to the shipper that does three jobs at once: a receipt for the goods, evidence of the contract of carriage, and a document of title that controls who can take delivery.

A scheduled sailing on a liner service that the carrier cancels, so the departure does not run.

A customs-supervised facility where imported goods are stored without paying import duty, with the duty deferred until the goods are withdrawn.

A surcharge ocean carriers add on top of the base freight rate to cover changes in the price of bunker fuel, the fuel burned to power the ship.

An official document, issued by an authorized body such as a chamber of commerce, certifying the country in which exported goods were produced or manufactured.

Cost and Freight (CFR) is the Incoterm, for sea or inland-waterway transport only, under which the seller contracts and pays for carriage to the named port of destination but risk of loss or damage passes to the buyer once the goods are on board the vessel at the port of shipment, so cost and risk transfer at different points.

The weight an air cargo shipment is billed on: whichever is greater, the cargo's actual gross weight or its volumetric weight, the weight calculated from the space the cargo occupies.

Cost, Insurance and Freight (CIF) is the sea and inland-waterway Incoterm under which the seller contracts and pays for carriage and marine insurance to the named port of destination, while risk of loss or damage passes to the buyer once the goods are on board the vessel at the port of shipment.

Carriage and Insurance Paid To (CIP) is the any-mode Incoterm under which the seller contracts and pays for both carriage and insurance to bring the goods to the named destination, while risk passes to the buyer when the goods are handed over to the first carrier, not at that destination.

The seller's bill to the buyer for goods shipped, and the primary document customs uses to determine the value of a shipment and the duties and taxes owed.

The forwarder's practice of combining several shippers' smaller shipments into one full container for the main carriage, then separating them again at destination.

A cargo handling facility where less than container load freight from several shippers is consolidated into shared containers at origin and deconsolidated out of them at destination.

The carrier's act of taking a booked container off its confirmed vessel and moving it to a later sailing: the ship departs without it, and the container stays behind at the port.

The area within a port terminal or container facility where full containers are received, stacked, and delivered, holding export boxes until they are loaded onto a vessel and import boxes after discharge until they are picked up.

Carriage Paid To (CPT) is the any-mode Incoterm under which the seller contracts and pays for carriage to bring the goods to the named destination, but risk passes to the buyer when the goods are handed over to the first carrier, not at that destination.

A customs bond is a performance contract between a principal and a surety, with US Customs and Border Protection as the beneficiary, that protects the revenue of the United States by securing payment of duties, taxes, and fees and the principal's compliance with customs law and regulation.

A person or firm licensed by the customs authority to clear goods through customs on behalf of importers and exporters.

The latest time a loaded export container can pass through the terminal gate and be accepted into the container yard for its intended vessel, set by the carrier and communicated on the booking confirmation.

Cargo classified as hazardous under the IMDG Code (International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code), which assigns each substance a UN number, hazard class, and packing and documentation requirements.

Delivered at Place (DAP) is the any-mode Incoterm under which the seller delivers when the goods are placed at the buyer's disposal on the arriving means of transport, ready for unloading at the named place of destination, with the buyer responsible for unloading and for import clearance.

The Digital Container Shipping Association, a non-profit founded in 2019 by the major ocean carriers to publish common technical standards for the industry, covering areas such as track-and-trace, the electronic bill of lading, and booking data.

Delivered Duty Paid (DDP) is the any-mode Incoterm under which the seller bears all costs and risks of delivering the goods to the named place of destination, including import clearance and the payment of import duties and taxes, making it the maximum obligation placed on the seller.

The release document a carrier or its authorised destination agent issues, once the original bill of lading is surrendered or the release conditions are otherwise met, authorising the port, terminal, or depot to hand the cargo to the named consignee.

The charge that accrues when a container exceeds its free time at the marine terminal.

The charge for keeping a carrier's container or equipment in use outside the marine terminal beyond the free time included in the carriage.

A digital freight forwarder is a freight forwarder that performs the standard forwarding role of booking, documentation, customs coordination, and shipment visibility, but delivers that service through an online platform with software-led quoting, booking, and tracking rather than manual workflows.

Delivered at Place Unloaded (DPU) is the any-mode Incoterm under which the seller delivers when the goods, once unloaded from the arriving means of transport, are placed at the buyer's disposal at the named place of destination, and it is the only Incoterm that requires the seller to unload.

The short-haul trucking move that carries a container between a port or rail terminal and a nearby point, such as a warehouse, another terminal, or the customer's door.

The time cargo or a container sits stationary at a node, such as a port, terminal, or depot, between one movement and the next.

The electronic air waybill: the air waybill exchanged as data between forwarder and airline instead of on paper, carrying the same shipment data and the same contract of carriage with no paper original.

Electronic Data Interchange, the structured, machine-to-machine exchange of standard business documents (bookings, shipping instructions, status messages) between systems such as a forwarder's TMS and a carrier's platform.

A digital bill of lading that carries the same three legal functions as the paper original (receipt, contract of carriage, document of title) in electronic form, exchanged through an approved platform.

The Economic Operators Registration and Identification number, which uniquely identifies economic operators to EU customs and is mandatory for the clearance of all types of customs operations in the EU customs territory, such as import, export and transit.

ETA (estimated time of arrival) and ETD (estimated time of departure) are forecasts of when a shipment will reach the port of discharge or leave the port of loading, while ATA (actual time of arrival) is the recorded time it in fact arrived.

A cargo release at destination made without any original bill of lading being issued or presented: the shipment moves on a non-negotiable document such as a sea waybill or express bill, so the carrier delivers to the named consignee with no originals to surrender.

Ex Works (EXW) is the any-mode Incoterm under which the seller fulfils its obligation by making the goods available at its own premises or another named place, while the buyer bears all costs and risks from that point onward, including loading the goods and clearing them for export, making it the minimum obligation on the seller and the maximum on the buyer.

Free Alongside Ship (FAS) is the Incoterm under which the seller delivers when the goods are placed alongside the vessel nominated by the buyer, such as on the quay or on a barge, at the named port of shipment, after which the buyer bears all costs and risks, and it is for sea or inland-waterway transport only.

Free Carrier (FCA) is the any-mode Incoterm under which the seller delivers the goods, cleared for export, to a carrier or other party nominated by the buyer at a named place, and risk passes to the buyer at that point.

A full container load, a shipment that occupies its own container, booked by and for a single shipper.

Free On Board (FOB) is the Incoterms rule, for sea or inland-waterway transport only, under which the seller delivers when the goods are loaded on board the vessel nominated by the buyer at the named port of shipment, with risk of loss or damage passing to the buyer at that point.

The period included in the carriage before demurrage or detention charges begin to accrue on a container.

A freight management system, sometimes called a freight forwarding management system or FFMS, is software designed for freight forwarders that centralises a forwarder's own operations, from quoting and booking through documentation, tracking, and invoicing across ocean and air.

The European Union regulation that limits the greenhouse-gas intensity of the energy used on board ships, measured on a well-to-wake basis, applying to commercial ships above five thousand gross tonnage calling at EU ports regardless of flag.

The paired tracking events recorded when a container passes through a terminal or depot gate: gate-in marks the container entering the facility, and gate-out marks it leaving.

A carrier-announced increase to base ocean freight rates on a trade lane, taking effect from a stated date.

The pair of bills of lading covering the same cargo: the house BL, issued by the freight forwarder or NVOCC to the actual shipper, and the master BL, issued by the ocean carrier to that forwarder or NVOCC.

The Harmonized System code, an international product-classification number maintained by the World Customs Organization and used to assess duties, apply restrictions, and compile trade statistics. The first six digits are global, and countries extend it for their own tariffs.

The European Union's Import Control System 2, the customs pre-arrival security programme that requires advance cargo information to be filed before goods arrive in or transit the EU. It has been introduced in phases by transport mode, with Release 3 (4 December 2024) bringing maritime cargo into scope.

Incoterms are a set of standardised international trade terms published by the International Chamber of Commerce that allocate, between seller and buyer in a contract of sale, who arranges and pays for carriage and insurance, who clears the goods for export and import, and the point at which risk of loss or damage passes from seller to buyer.

Intelligent document processing is a technology that combines optical character recognition with artificial intelligence and machine learning to classify documents, extract structured data from them, and validate the results.

The Importer Security Filing (known as 10+2) is the advance security data required by US Customs and Border Protection for cargo arriving in the United States by ocean vessel, comprising ten data elements the importer must file before the cargo is laden at the foreign port, plus two datasets transmitted by the carrier.

A shipment too small to fill its own container, moving as one consignment among several shippers' cargo consolidated into a shared container.

A contractual commitment by the buyer's bank to pay the seller once the goods are shipped and the documents the credit requires are presented and comply with its terms.

The pair of air waybills covering the same cargo: the master air waybill (MAWB), issued by the airline or its agent for the consolidated shipment, and the house air waybill (HAWB), issued by the freight forwarder to the individual shipper within that consolidation.

A company that takes on carrier responsibility for ocean cargo without operating any vessels: it buys space from the ocean carriers, resells that space to its own customers, and issues its own house bills of lading for the cargo.

Optical character recognition (OCR) is technology that converts images or scans of typed, printed, or handwritten text into machine-readable characters.

The shipping document that itemises the physical contents of a shipment package by package: item descriptions, quantities, weights, dimensions, packaging details, handling instructions, and identification marks.

The document package an origin forwarder or agent sends to its destination counterpart before the cargo arrives, typically copies of the bill of lading or air waybill, the commercial invoice, and the packing list, so the destination office can prepare customs clearance and delivery.

A temporary surcharge a carrier applies on top of base ocean freight during high-demand periods, announced per trade lane with an effective date.

A refrigerated shipping container with a built-in refrigeration unit that holds its cargo at a set temperature throughout the move.

Robotic Process Automation is rule-based software that automates digital tasks by mimicking fixed human actions, such as keystrokes and mouse clicks, across application user interfaces according to predefined scripts.

The Standard Carrier Alpha Code, a two-to-four letter identifier assigned by the NMFTA (National Motor Freight Traffic Association) that uniquely identifies a transport carrier.

SCMTR (the Sea Cargo Manifest and Transhipment Regulations) is an Indian Customs regime that replaces the legacy import general manifest (IGM) and export general manifest (EGM) filing with advance, structured, electronic manifest messages filed ahead of cargo movement by carriers, shipping lines, freight forwarders, and custodians.

A non-negotiable transport document that acts as a receipt for the goods and evidence of the contract of carriage, but not as a document of title: no originals are issued, and the carrier releases the cargo to the named consignee without an original document being presented or surrendered.

The shipper's written instructions to its freight forwarder for an export shipment, setting out the parties, the cargo details, the routing, and the insurance and documentation requirements, and authorising the forwarder to proceed with the shipment on those terms.

A shipping bill is the export goods declaration that an exporter or broker files with Indian Customs, electronically through ICEGATE, and that Customs must assess and pass before export cargo can be cleared and loaded, making it the export counterpart of the bill of entry.

The shipper's formal instruction to the carrier on how to draw up the bill of lading: shipper, consignee, notify party, cargo description, marks, and the rest of the BL detail. It is submitted after the booking and before the BL cut-off.

The carrier's deadline for submitting the final shipping instruction (SI): the full set of bill of lading and shipment details the carrier uses to draft the BL and build the manifest.

The distinction between the two ways ocean freight is priced: a spot rate is bought per shipment at the market's current price, while a contract rate is agreed between a shipper or forwarder and a carrier for an extended period, often a year, locking in rate and capacity.

CMA CGM's digital spot-rate booking channel, which returns an instant quote at a price locked for 24 hours (72 hours with the Lock My Price option), with priority booking confirmation within 2 hours, priority equipment release, and priority loading. It is accessed through My CMA CGM.

An original bill of lading that the shipper has handed back to the carrier at origin, in full set, so the cargo can be released to the named consignee at destination without paper originals being presented.

A second set of original bills of lading issued to replace the first set, used to change details such as shipper, consignee, or port marks. It is common in back-to-back or triangular trades where the end buyer should not see the original supplier.

A way of releasing cargo at destination without presenting paper originals: the shipper surrenders all original BLs at origin, and the carrier sends an electronic message authorising its destination office to release the cargo to the named consignee.

The charge for handling a container at the port or terminal, billed at both the origin and the destination of a shipment.

The twenty-foot equivalent unit, the standard measure of container capacity: the space of one standard twenty-foot container, used to size vessels, fleets, port throughput, and trade volumes.

A transportation management system (TMS) is software that manages the planning, execution, and optimisation of shipments across carriers, modes, and lanes.

The transfer of cargo from one vessel to another at an intermediate hub port, so a shipment with no direct service reaches its destination on a connecting ship after being moved at the hub.

The draft bill of lading that Maersk generates for checking once shipping instructions are submitted and accepted, made available on Maersk.com or by email so the shipper or forwarder can review every field and request corrections before the final bill of lading is issued.

Verified Gross Mass, the total weight of a packed container (cargo plus the container's tare) that the shipper must verify and submit to the carrier before it can be loaded. It has been mandatory under the SOLAS convention since July 2016.