CFR, Cost and Freight, is the sea-transport Incoterm where the seller pays for carriage to the named destination port, but risk transfers to the buyer when the goods are on board at the load port. The seller books the vessel; the buyer bears voyage risk and insures if it wants cover.
CFR splits money from risk in a way that surprises newcomers: the seller chooses the carrier and pays freight to destination, yet a loss mid-ocean is the buyer’s problem. The buyer inherits the voyage the seller booked, including its transshipments and schedule quality.
CFR is CIF minus insurance: identical logistics and risk transfer, no obligation on the seller to insure. Destination-side costs beyond freight, and import clearance, remain the buyer’s.
Because the buyer carries risk over a voyage the seller chose, tracking is the buyer’s window into someone else’s booking: which vessel, which routing, which delays. With the container or B/L number in TrackingMCP, the buyer watches the ocean leg it is exposed to, and the seller retains proof of the on-board moment where its risk ended.
Incoterms allocate cost and risk between buyer and seller, but the sales contract controls. Confirm the rule, the named place, and the Incoterms edition in writing, and take advice for anything contentious.
CFR, Cost and Freight, is the sea-transport Incoterm where the seller pays for carriage to the named destination port, but risk transfers to the buyer when the goods are on board at the load port. The seller books the vessel; the buyer bears voyage risk and insures if it wants cover.
Nobody is obliged to. The buyer bears voyage risk and prudently arranges its own cover; if seller-arranged insurance is wanted, CIF is the term that requires it.
Freight to the destination port is the seller’s; unloading and onward costs typically fall to the buyer subject to the carriage contract’s allocation of discharge costs. Risk, separately, transfers at loading.
Watch the voyage you bear risk on →
Destination port context →
More in Incoterms, rates & risk: Incoterms · EXW (Ex Works) · FCA (Free Carrier) · FOB (Free On Board) · CIF (Cost, Insurance and Freight) · DAP (Delivered at Place) · DDP (Delivered Duty Paid) · Spot rate vs contract rate · Force majeure · General average · Letter of indemnity (LOI) · Browse all 106 terms →