Getting your goods across the world's stage requires more than a shipping label. There's a suite of documents, each critical to clear customs and ensure your delivery reaches its destination without delay.
To avoid any confusion or missing paperwork, here’s a checklist of the nine essential docs you'll need in your logistical toolbox. Whether you're new to the game or seasoned in the art of global trade, this checklist will keep your cargo on course and your business compliant.
Bill of Lading
The Bill of Lading (BOL) is not just a shipping receipt; it's the captain's log of your cargo's voyage. Think of it as the DNA of your shipment—without it, there's no proof of what you're sending or where it’s headed.
A comprehensive BOL records quantities, destinations, and conditions—a binding contract between you, the carrier, and the recipient that safeguards your goods from port to port. And digitizing this is a way of saving $6.5 billion across global shipping markets, according to McKinsey, so it’s well worth taking your small slice of this pie where possible.
Insurance Certificates
In the unpredictable theater of international shipping, an Insurance Certificate is your safety net. The tumultuous journey from dock to doorstep can be fraught with risks—product damage, theft, or loss are genuine concerns.
Industry data shows that approximately 661 marine shipping containers were lost at sea in 2022. This stark number underscores the importance of having comprehensive coverage in place. An Insurance Certificate proves you have policies to mitigate these risks, reassuring all parties involved that your goods are protected under a watchful eye until the final curtain call.
Customs Declaration
Like travelers at an international border, your goods need their own passport to enter a new country—the Customs Declaration form. This document is indispensable; it details your shipment's nature, value, and quantity, allowing customs agents to classify and clear it swiftly.
This aspect can be complex, with just 9% of smaller traders having a permanent team member capable of tackling customs documentation in-house, based on a recent FSB survey. Rather than this being a bottleneck to efficiency or an expensive issue requiring additional manpower, the right strategies and tools can streamline it without sacrificing accuracy. So for example with the help of this online PDF editor, you can alter digital documents, sidestepping potential issues at borders before they arise.
Commercial Invoice
The Commercial Invoice serves as the official transaction record between buyer and seller for customs valuation. Neglecting its precision or completeness can lead to a tangled web of customs delays, and since a Cargo Owners report from 2021 asserts that 20% of invoices are weighed down by inaccuracies, not every business is getting the message here.
This document needs to detail product descriptions, value, currency, and terms of sale with clarity that leaves no room for misinterpretation. In this context, a well-prepared Commercial Invoice points you in the right direction: towards a seamless entry through foreign checkpoints and toward your customer's waiting hands.
Certificate of Origin
Securing a Certificate of Origin for your cargo is like providing a detailed ancestry record. It tells the story of where your products were born and raised—information that's vital for customs officials.
This document can impact duty rates; certain goods may attract lower tariffs if they originate from countries with favorable trade agreements. And while tariffs are currently at historic lows of 2.6%, according to World Bank data, ensuring your shipment carries this certificate not only complies with international trade laws but can also carve a more cost-effective path through tariffs and taxes.
Export License
An Export License acts as the key that unlocks global trade doors for restricted goods. It's a government-issued permit necessary when dealing with controlled products, ranging from high technology to agricultural items.
While not all goods require this documentation, failure to obtain one when needed can result in severe penalties or even criminal charges. So in the US, for instance, around 95% of goods don’t fall under the purview of a license, but it’s still recommended to have strategies in place to ensure everything is managed in an above-board way if you’re shipping internationally.
Packing List
The devil, as they say, is in the details; nowhere is this more evident than in the Packing List. This document meticulously itemizes every aspect of your shipment: weights, measures, box counts, and specifics that seem minute but are essential for logistics precision.
Overlooking this can lead to load discrepancies; and misloaded cargo is not only the cause of freight forwarding errors, but also poses a safety risk, particularly in air transport scenarios. A detailed Packing List ensures all involved parties have a clear understanding of the shipment's contents, making it a cornerstone for effective inventory management, cost optimizations and error-free shipping.
Import Licenses
For certain goods, wielding an Import License is another must-have, even if it is not one of the more glamorous inclusions. This document, mandated by governing bodies, controls the influx of specific goods into a country. Neglecting to secure one can halt your shipment indefinitely at the border, disrupting supply chains and inflating costs.
Food products are especially closely monitored where imports are concerned, and while the FDA in the US only investigates around 2% of edible items that pass across the borders from overseas, there’s still the potential for all sorts of issues to arise if documentation issues emerge. It’s better to play it safe than take a risk, regardless of the scale of your operations.
Export Declarations
The Export Declaration is the ledger of outbound logistics, essential for tracking and controlling the exit of goods from one country to another. This official document, often overlooked in spite of its gravity, reports precise details about your export to government authorities.
Billions of dollars in potential business revenue is compromised each year due to missteps with export declarations, so digitization and attention to detail will once again be your best friends in this scenario.
Wrapping Up
There are, of course, a lot more than nine things you need to do to successfully ship goods internationally, but if you’re able to get serious about documentation as discussed, then you should be setting yourself up to succeed in the other areas of your global operations.
