The SI workflow problem
Shipping instructions look identical across carriers in the abstract: shipper, consignee, cargo description, container details, HS code, weights, seals. In practice, every Tier 1 carrier publishes a different portal, a different validation behaviour, and a different escalation path when something gets rejected. An ops desk handling six or seven carriers cannot apply one mental model. The submission step that feels routine on Maersk turns into a 15-minute investigation on MSC because of a single accented character, or fails on Hapag-Lloyd because the legacy eaSI form is missing the ICS2 fields the EU now mandates.
The friction stacks across the workflow. Cargo descriptions that cleared US CBP last year now auto-reject under the September 2025 specificity rule. EU-bound cargo needs ICS2 data filed via the right channel, and the right channel differs from carrier to carrier. Documentation cut-offs are per-booking and per-port, not global. Amendment fees vary by country, by submission channel, and by whether the vessel has sailed. Each rejection costs ops time, often a senior reviewer, and occasionally a missed loading.
The work that used to be "fill a form" is now portal-specific data engineering with a regulatory deadline.
How it varies by carrier
Each Tier 1 carrier has portal-specific SI quirks. These are the top-line differences; each carrier page has the full workflow.
Maersk
Maersk's portal enforces a six-digit HS code minimum at submission time, but its rejection messages are often a generic 'field validation error' that does not name the failing field. Cut-off enforcement tightened since mid-2025, so a missed seal-number amendment can block loading.
MSC
myMSC strips or rejects accented and special characters (ç, %, ½, asterisks) per MSC's Brazil advisory, which trips Latin American, Iberian, and CJK shipper names. The BL type choice (Original BL, Sea Waybill, eBL) is locked at booking; switching at SI stage requires cancel-and-rebook.
CMA CGM
CMA CGM charges a Manual SI Fee of EUR 100 per BL on its own template (EUR 125 on a customer template) for email submissions in Germany, with per-country amendment fees on top. CMA CGM does not enforce a global HS code minimum at the portal layer, so invalid codes pass validation and surface later at customs filing.
Hapag-Lloyd
Hapag-Lloyd's legacy eaSI PDF form does not carry ICS2 fields. Submitting eaSI on an EU-bound booking results in incomplete ENS filing and triggers 'No MRN / No Load' enforcement, active since September 2024. Document type is selected at SI stage rather than booking.
ONE
ONE accepts EDI in three formats (ANSI, EDIFACT, XML), more flexibility than most Tier 1 carriers. ONE charges an Entry Summary Declaration Surcharge of USD 35 per BL for carrier-side ICS2 ENS transmission; F12 and F13 multi-filing let forwarders self-file house-level data and reduce ESD exposure.
COSCO
COSCO bookings frequently produce containers with non-COSU BIC prefixes (CCLU, CSLU, CBHU, COCU from the 2016 China Shipping merger; CICU for leased equipment), all of which route under COSU for SI, BL, and customs filing. Amendment fees are regional: USD 100 per BL for USA, Far East, China, Australia; USD 140 per BL for Europe and ENS trades; INR 5,000 per BL for India.
Evergreen
Evergreen runs eight family BIC prefixes (EMCU, EGHU, EGSU, EITU, HMCU, UGMU, LTIU, IMTU) that all route under EGLV, while a GESU container belongs to GESeaCo container leasing and must not be filed under EGLV. Country amendment fees sit behind ShipmentLink login with no consolidated global tariff.
How it varies by TMS
The TMS layer adds another set of variance points. CargoWise users connect to carrier portals through eAdaptor (XML over SOAP), which handles shipment-side data exchange but does not natively validate carrier-specific portal rules; the SI still has to land cleanly on Maersk.com, myMSC, My CMA CGM, the Online Business Suite, ONE eCommerce, SynCon Hub, or ShipmentLink. GoFreight and Magaya expose REST and Open APIs respectively for shipment data, with carrier integration handled outside the TMS in most cases. Logi-Sys runs API-plus-browser-automation for several carriers. INTTRA (now part of e2open) remains the dominant intermediary EDI channel for high-volume IFTMIN flows, active across all seven Tier 1 carriers.
The pattern across TMSs is consistent: forwarder-side data exchange is solved; carrier-side portal-specific submission, ICS2 filing, character rules, and amendment routing are not. Expedion agents bridge that gap by reading from the TMS via its native API and submitting through whichever carrier channel the booking requires.
How Expedion handles SI
Seven capabilities cover the full SI workflow across every Tier 1 carrier. Each one maps to friction patterns documented on the per-carrier SI pages.
Agents log into Maersk.com, myMSC, My CMA CGM, the Hapag-Lloyd Online Business Suite, ONE eCommerce, SynCon Hub, or ShipmentLink (or use the carrier's API where available), populate fields in the order each portal expects, and submit. Field-level validation runs against the active carrier's rules before the SI is sent.
Strip accented characters, special characters, and non-ASCII content per MSC's Brazil advisory and equivalent country-level rules. Validate seal-number format against MSC's Costa Rica restrictions (no dots, hyphens, commas, asterisks). Replace unsafe characters with safe transliterations rather than passing them through and triggering a downstream rejection.
Generate IMO Class declarations with IMDG code lookup, packing instruction validation, UN number cross-check, and segregation-table awareness. The DG block is produced from the commercial invoice and packing list rather than entered free-text, so it stays consistent with the SI cargo description.
For EU, Norway, Northern Ireland, and Switzerland-bound cargo, select the right ICS2 filing option (F10, F11, F12, F13, F14, F15, F17) based on the forwarder's NVOCC role and customer filing preference. Validate EORI numbers, six-digit HS codes, and complete party addresses before submission so the MRN generates first time.
Request VGM from the shipper, validate against the booking gross weight, submit to the carrier, and confirm reconciliation. Tolerances differ by carrier and country (MSC publishes 500kg under 10T, 5% over 10T in Vietnam); the agent applies the active rule rather than a generic threshold.
When a post-submission change is required, agents calculate the applicable per-country fee from the published tariff (CMA CGM EUR 50/BL from second amendment in Germany; Hapag-Lloyd USD 70/USD 130 USA pre-/post-sailing; COSCO USD 100/USD 140/INR 5,000 by region) and route the amendment for forwarder approval before submission. Email amendment paths are avoided because several carriers either ignore them (MSC Brazil pattern) or charge a manual fee.
After submission, agents poll the carrier's DCSA-aligned tracking feed for SI acceptance status, draft BL availability, and rejection events. Rejections are parsed against known carrier-specific patterns and re-routed for correction without waiting for a human to discover the failure.
Related pages
SI by carrier: Maersk · MSC · CMA CGM · Hapag-Lloyd · ONE · COSCO · Evergreen
Hubs: Carriers hub · Solutions hub
Other solutions: Bill of lading · Booking · Documentation · Tracking
Frequently asked questions
How much of SI submission can AI actually automate?
Form filling, field validation, character sanitisation, ICS2 filing mode selection, VGM reconciliation, and amendment submission are fully automated across all seven Tier 1 carriers. The human-in-the-loop step is final review and sign-off before submission, plus exception handling when a carrier returns a non-standard rejection or when a shipper instruction conflicts with a letter-of-credit term. In practice, routine SIs go through agent-prepared and forwarder-approved without rework; the senior reviewer's time concentrates on LC cross-checking, switch BL coordination, and ambiguous cargo descriptions.
What happens when a carrier changes its SI portal or workflow?
Carrier-rule changes are tracked per carrier as part of the agent spec. Recent examples include EU ICS2 Release 3 going live on 4 December 2024 (master-only, master-plus-house, and supplementary declarant filing options), CBP's auto-rejection of vague cargo descriptions from 27 September 2025, Hapag-Lloyd's Preview Before Submit feature added August 2025, and CMA CGM's amendment fee schedule revision in Germany on 15 February 2025. When a carrier publishes a change, the active rule set is updated and validations are reapplied without changes to the forwarder's TMS workflow.
Which TMSs can Expedion integrate with for SI submission?
CargoWise via eAdaptor (XML over SOAP), GoFreight via REST API, Magaya via Open API or Magaya Connect, Logi-Sys via API plus browser automation, and INTTRA (e2open) for high-volume IFTMIN EDI flows across all seven Tier 1 carriers. Forwarders without a TMS run on email-and-spreadsheet workflows; agents read shipment data from those sources and submit through the carrier portal directly. The TMS handles forwarder-side data; agents handle carrier-side portal-specific submission.
How does AI handle SI rejections and resubmissions?
Rejection events are detected via DCSA tracking polling and parsed against carrier-specific rejection patterns. Maersk's generic 'field validation error' is matched against known causes (HS code format, VGM mismatch, field length); ICS2 rejections are matched against missing-EORI or incomplete-address patterns; CBP rejections are matched against the 27 September 2025 specificity rule. The corrected SI is prepared, routed for forwarder approval, and resubmitted through the same channel as the original. Each rejection-correction cycle is logged with field-level diff for audit.
Why do SI formats vary so much across carriers?
Three reasons. First, DCSA standardisation is partial: T&T v2.2 is live across most Tier 1 carriers, but SI 3.0 adoption is uneven and document-type rules (Original BL versus Sea Waybill versus eBL) still vary by carrier. Second, regional regulations layer on top of carrier rules: ICS2 for the EU, AMS for the US, ENS for incoming EU cargo, country-level mandates like Malaysia's 6-digit HS rule from October 2018. Third, each carrier's portal evolved separately under commercial preferences (MSC's irrevocable BL type choice, Maersk's authorised parties model, ONE's three-format EDI flexibility). The carrier-specific rules persist because each carrier has incentive to differentiate at the portal layer.