Sea Freight Arrival Notice Explained: What It Contains and What to Do When It Arrives

For most importers the first sign that their sea shipment is about to reach Bangladesh is an email with a PDF attached, usually titled “Arrival Notice” or “Cargo Arrival Notice”. It is easy to skim and file. It should not be. The arrival notice contains the reference numbers your C&F agent needs to lodge the Bill of Entry, tells you what the carrier or forwarder will charge before releasing the cargo, and quietly starts the countdown on free time. Treating it as paperwork to deal with later is one of the more common ways importers lose money at Chattogram.

Who sends the arrival notice and when

The notice is issued by the party whose bill of lading you hold. If you shipped with a shipping line directly, its local agent in Bangladesh sends it. If you shipped through a forwarder or NVOCC, the forwarder’s destination office or agent sends it under its own house bill of lading, and you may never hear from the ocean carrier at all. It goes to the consignee and the notify party named on the bill of lading, which is why getting those fields right at booking stage matters.

Timing varies. It is usually sent a few days before the vessel’s estimated arrival, and a revised notice may follow if the schedule changes. There is no guarantee that it will arrive in good time, and a carrier’s failure to send one does not generally stop storage and detention charges from running. The responsibility to track the shipment stays with the importer. Our guide on tracking a shipment explains how to follow the vessel yourself.

What is on an arrival notice, field by field

• Bill of lading number — the master and, for forwarder shipments, the house B/L number. These link the notice to your documents.
• Vessel name, voyage number and ETA — the ship actually carrying your cargo on the final leg. After transshipment this is often a feeder vessel, not the ship that left China.
• Port of discharge and final place of delivery — Chattogram, an off-dock depot, or an inland destination such as the Kamalapur ICD.
• Rotation number and line number — the vessel’s registration against the Import General Manifest and your cargo’s line on it. These are what your C&F agent enters in ASYCUDA World to link the Bill of Entry to the manifest.
• Container numbers, seal numbers and type — for FCL, or the CFS where LCL cargo will be unstuffed.
• Package count, gross weight and volume — as manifested. These must match your invoice and packing list.
• Local charges payable — items such as delivery order fee, documentation fee, terminal handling and, for LCL, destination CFS charges.
• Free time — the number of days before detention on the container begins, if stated.
• Release conditions — whether an original B/L must be surrendered, whether a telex release or sea waybill applies, and what identity documents are needed to collect the delivery order.

The five things to do the day it arrives

1. Compare it with your documents. Check the B/L number, consignee name, package count and weight against your commercial invoice and packing list. A mismatch between the manifest and your documents is far easier to correct before the Bill of Entry is lodged than after. If there is an error, you may need a manifest amendment, which takes time.

2. Send it to your C&F agent immediately. The agent needs the rotation and line numbers to prepare the Bill of Entry, and in many cases can begin pre-arrival processing so that assessment starts as soon as the vessel berths.

3. Sort out the release document. If the notice says original bills of lading are required, confirm where they are. If the supplier still holds them because the balance payment is outstanding, you now have a deadline. Our pieces on delayed original B/Ls and telex release explain the options.

4. Question any charge you do not recognise. Compare the local charges with what was quoted at booking. Destination charges are a common source of disputes, particularly on shipments sold on terms where the buyer did not arrange the freight. Asking for a breakdown before paying is reasonable.

5. Put the free-time end date in your calendar. Work backwards from it: customs assessment, duty payment, physical examination if selected, and transport. If the timetable does not fit, talk to the line or forwarder about extra free time now, not on the last day.

Arrival notice versus delivery order

Document	Issued by	Purpose	When
Arrival notice	Carrier or forwarder at destination	Informs you the cargo is arriving and what you must do and pay	Before or around vessel arrival
Delivery order (DO)	Carrier or forwarder, after payment and document surrender	Authorises the port or depot to hand the cargo to your agent	After you pay local charges and surrender the B/L or show release
Bill of Entry	Lodged by your C&F agent in ASYCUDA World	Customs declaration for assessment of duty and taxes	After manifest is filed; can be pre-lodged in some cases

The arrival notice is informational; the delivery order is the one that actually releases the cargo from the carrier’s control. Customs release then comes through the Bill of Entry process. All three have to line up before a truck can leave the port gate.

What goes wrong, and why

• The notice goes to the wrong person. If the supplier listed itself or its own agent as notify party, you may never receive it. Specify the notify party in your proforma invoice and shipping instructions.
• It lands in spam or an unmonitored inbox. Give carriers and forwarders an address someone checks daily, and ask for a phone call on arrival for time-sensitive cargo.
• Weights differ from the invoice. A large difference between the manifested weight and your declared weight can trigger examination, because customs uses such discrepancies as a risk indicator.
• The vessel on the notice is unfamiliar. This is usually a transshipment feeder, not a mistake — but check it against the tracking so you are following the right ship.
• Waiting for the notice before starting clearance. Documents, IRC details and permits should be ready before the ship sails from the transshipment port.

How the notice fits the wider clearance timeline

At Chattogram, delays compound. A day lost because the notice sat unread becomes a day of port rent, a day of container detention, and possibly a missed truck slot. Importers who move smoothly treat the arrival notice as the trigger for a checklist that was prepared weeks earlier: documents already reviewed, duty funds ready for A-Challan payment, transport booked. Our step-by-step clearance guide and free-time explainer fill in the remaining steps.

How LCL and FCL arrival notices differ

If your goods travel as a full container, the arrival notice relates to the container itself: its number, seal, and the free time before detention begins on the box. Once the container is released and trucked out, what happens inside it is your business. With LCL cargo, the notice relates to your packages inside a shared container, and the important location is the container freight station or depot where that container will be unstuffed. Your cargo cannot be examined or delivered until the whole consolidated box has been discharged, moved to the CFS and opened, so an LCL shipment is only as fast as the slowest document in the container.

Two practical differences follow. First, LCL notices usually list charges calculated on weight or measure, so check that the volume shown matches your packing list; a volume error on the notice becomes a charge error on the invoice. Second, LCL cargo is usually released against a house bill of lading issued by the consolidator, so the delivery order comes from the forwarder’s local office rather than the ocean carrier. Keep both parties’ contact details to hand, because a query about storage at the CFS may need to go to one and a query about the house bill to the other.

Talk to DE International

When you ship with DE International, we monitor the vessel, check the arrival notice against your documents and start the Bill of Entry process as soon as the manifest is available. See our full range of import, freight and clearance services, China sourcing and buying agent service, browse the shop, or contact us for a quote built around your product and volume.