What a BL amendment fee is
A BL amendment fee is what an ocean carrier charges to correct a bill of lading (BL) after the shipping instruction (SI) has been filed, usually once the SI cut-off or the vessel sailing has passed. It is charged per bill of lading, not per container or per booking, so a single shipment that moves on several BLs can attract the fee more than once.
The fee is distinct from two charges it is often confused with. A telex release fee covers releasing the cargo at destination without the original BL, and a switch bill of lading fee covers reissuing the BL at a different port. Both are separate line items on a carrier's tariff, and neither is an amendment fee. This page covers the amendment fee only.
Carriers price the amendment by how much manual work it forces and how late it lands. A correction made digitally before the vessel sails is often free, while the same correction by email after departure can carry two or three stacked charges. Because each carrier publishes its own schedule per country, there is no single global amendment fee, and the figures below are published examples, each tied to a region and a tariff version. Confirm the current amount with the carrier before you quote it.
What the major carriers publish
These are representative published figures from each carrier's regional tariff, not a live price list. BL amendment fees move by country and by tariff revision, so treat each row as an example as of the date or tariff version shown, and confirm the current amount with the carrier. Carrier pages with the full workflow: Maersk, MSC, CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, COSCO, and ONE. Release fees and switch-BL fees are different charges and are not in this table. MSC India also publishes a separate manifest corrector, USD 160 per BL for corrections after sailing (effective 1 January 2026, MSC India tariff); like release and switch-BL fees, that is a different fee class, not a BL amendment fee, and is not in the table.
| Carrier | BL amendment fee | Region | Effective date | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maersk | USD 75 per BL (email, phone, or chat) | North America (US and Canada) | Introduced Sept 2020; digital mandate (global) 1 July 2024 | Maersk Manual Documentation Amendment Fee |
| MSC | Free (pre-sailing, via myMSC or EDI) | USA | 1 February 2025 | MSC USA tariff |
| MSC | USD 75 per BL (post-sailing, any channel) | USA | 1 February 2025 | MSC USA tariff |
| MSC | Plus USD 100 per BL (manual channel) | USA | 1 February 2025 | MSC USA Manual BL Fee |
| MSC | USD 35 per BL (seaway BL amendment) | India | 1 January 2026 | MSC India tariff [MSC2] |
| CMA CGM | EUR 50 per BL from the 2nd amendment (1st free) | Germany | 15 February 2025 | CMA CGM Germany local charges |
| CMA CGM | EUR 150 per BL after call closure | Germany | 15 July 2025 | CMA CGM Germany local charges |
| Hapag-Lloyd | Free (before cut-off) | USA | Current USA tariff (MAF L007) | Hapag-Lloyd USA Local Charges tariff (MAF L007) |
| Hapag-Lloyd | USD 25 per amendment (after cut-off through sailing) | USA | eff. 16 Aug 2023 (MAF L007) | Hapag-Lloyd USA Local Charges tariff (MAF L007) |
| Hapag-Lloyd | USD 130 per amendment (after departure) | USA | Current USA tariff (MAF L007) | Hapag-Lloyd USA Local Charges tariff (MAF L007) |
| COSCO | USD 100 per BL | USA, Far East, China, Australia | Current COSCO USA tariff | COSCO USA tariff |
| COSCO | USD 140 per BL | Europe and ENS trades | Current COSCO regional tariff | COSCO regional tariff |
| COSCO | INR 5,000 per BL | India | 1 February 2025 | COSCO India local charges |
| ONE | INR 5,000 per BL (plus customs penalty at cost, plus GST) | India | May 2026 | ONE India local charges [O-IN] |
| ONE | MYR 172 per BL | Malaysia (Penang) | 1 January 2025 | ONE Penang local charges |
| Evergreen | No public amount | Per country | Behind ShipmentLink login | Evergreen (not published) |
| OOCL | No public amount | Per region | Behind regional tariff | OOCL (not published) |
How the fees are structured
Across carriers the same three axes set the fee, and they hold even as the specific numbers change. The first is region: every carrier publishes per country, so a figure from a USA tariff says nothing about the same carrier's rate in Germany or India.
The second is stage. A correction made before the vessel sails is often free, and the charge appears once the documentation cut-off or sailing has passed. MSC is the cleanest illustration: in the USA, effective 1 February 2025, pre-sailing amendments through myMSC or EDI are free, and the fee applies only after the vessel sails.
The third is channel. Digital amendments through the carrier portal or EDI are cheaper or free, while the same change sent by email, phone, or chat carries a manual surcharge. Maersk's USD 75 Manual Documentation Amendment Fee, introduced in North America in September 2020, and MSC's USD 100 Manual BL Fee in the USA, effective 1 February 2025, both apply to manual-channel amendments and exist to push them onto digital channels. Maersk mandated digital channels for amendments globally from 1 July 2024, but the manual-channel amount is set per country, so the USD 75 figure is the North America rate rather than a global one.
Two further patterns sit on top. Some carriers escalate by amendment count: CMA CGM Germany leaves the first amendment free and charges EUR 50 per BL from the second onward, effective 15 February 2025. Others split the fee by how late it lands: Hapag-Lloyd's USA tariff is free before cut-off, USD 25 per amendment between cut-off and sailing (effective 16 August 2023), and USD 130 once the vessel has departed. And some carriers, including Evergreen and OOCL, do not publish a public amount at all; their fees sit behind a regional tariff or a portal login. That gap is itself information: on those carriers the cost has to be confirmed per shipment rather than planned from a published rate.
The numbers above will drift as carriers revise tariffs. The structure will not. Amendment fees are charged per BL, set by region, lighter before the cut-off, lighter through digital channels, and absent from some carriers' public schedules entirely. The way to control them is to stop the amendment from being needed.
How Expedion keeps amendments (and their fees) from happening
Most amendment fees are paid on corrections that could have been caught before the cut-off. Expedion is a managed AI workforce for freight forwarding operations: its agents validate the SI and the draft BL against your booking and shipment data before the documentation cut-off, so a discrepancy is fixed inside the free window rather than becoming a billable post-sailing amendment. The agents run on top of your existing TMS and work each carrier's own portal or API, so there is no migration. This carrier-side capability is in supervised production with design partners, not general availability. You can read how Expedion handles bill of lading work in full.
Agents compare the SI and the draft BL field by field against the booking and the shipper's data, so corrections happen in the free pre-sailing window instead of after the documentation cut-off.
When an amendment is genuinely needed, agents submit it through the carrier portal or EDI by default, the channel that avoids the manual surcharge carriers add to email, phone, and chat changes.
Authorization is forwarder-provided, with explicit, auditable scope and human sign-off on any action you have not cleared for autonomy.
Frequently asked questions
What is a BL amendment fee?
A BL amendment fee is the charge an ocean carrier applies to correct a bill of lading after the shipping instruction has been filed, usually once the documentation cut-off or the vessel sailing has passed. It is charged per bill of lading. It is distinct from a telex release fee, which covers releasing cargo without the original BL, and a switch BL fee, which covers reissuing the BL at another port; those are separate charges, not amendment fees.
How much do carriers charge to amend a bill of lading?
It varies by carrier, region, stage, and channel, so there is no single rate. Some published examples: MSC's USA schedule effective 1 February 2025 sets a USD 75 per BL post-sailing amendment fee, with pre-sailing digital amendments free; CMA CGM Germany charges EUR 50 per BL from the second amendment, effective 15 February 2025, with the first free; and Maersk charges a USD 75 per BL Manual Documentation Amendment Fee on email, phone, or chat amendments in North America (introduced September 2020). Maersk mandated digital channels for amendments globally from 1 July 2024, though the manual-channel amount is set per country, so USD 75 is the North America rate. Hapag-Lloyd, COSCO, and ONE publish regional amendment fees shown in the table above. Treat each as a published example as of its date or tariff version, and confirm the current amount with the carrier.
Why do some carriers not publish a fee?
Two of the carriers here, Evergreen and OOCL, do not publish a public BL amendment amount. Their fees sit behind a regional tariff or a portal login and are quoted per shipment rather than from a public schedule. That is worth knowing rather than guessing: on these carriers the amendment cost has to be confirmed with the local office before it can be planned, and a comparison that invented a number for them would be wrong as often as right.
How do I avoid BL amendment fees?
The reliable way is to stop the amendment from being needed: file a complete, accurate shipping instruction before the cut-off, review the draft BL inside the free pre-sailing window, and make any correction through the carrier's digital channel rather than by email, phone, or chat, which usually carries a manual surcharge. This is also what Expedion's agents are built to do, validating the SI and draft BL before the cut-off so most corrections land in the free window.