Guide
What a freight quote leaves out, and who invoices it
Updated
A freight rate is not a price for getting your goods to your door, and it is almost never presented as anything else. The gap between the two is where importers lose money on their first few shipments.
Talk to a specialist The seven costs that sit outside a headline freight rate, and the four things you can verify about a forwarder before you ship.
The scope question
Ask whether the rate is port to port or door to door, and get the answer in writing. A port to port rate covers the sea leg and stops, leaving origin handling, destination terminal handling, customs entry, duty and final delivery outside it.
Those excluded items are frequently invoiced by parties you never selected and cannot negotiate with, because the forwarder appointed them at destination on your behalf.
Detention and demurrage
Free time at destination is finite. Once it expires, detention and demurrage accrue daily while your cargo waits for customs, for a trucker, or for you to have somewhere to put it.
The Federal Maritime Commission has issued a final rule on detention and demurrage billing practices, and a court has upheld its decision that detention fees must promote freight fluidity. Ask how many free days you have and what the daily rate is afterwards; it is the cost most first-time importers have never modelled.
Duty follows classification
What you pay in duty and whether the goods are admissible at all follows the Harmonized System code, not the description on your commercial invoice. Getting the code right is the importer's responsibility even when a broker files it.
Ask which code is being used and why. A broker who can explain the classification is doing the job; one who cannot has guessed on your behalf and the liability is still yours.
Build one comparable number
Take each quote and add the seven lines in the table above, asking for each one specifically. Then compare totals.
Two forwarders quoting rates that differ by a few hundred dollars can land a thousand apart once scope is equalised, and the cheaper headline is often the dearer shipment.