DDP, Delivered Duty Paid, is the Incoterm placing maximum obligation on the seller: deliver the goods to the named destination place cleared for import, with duties and taxes paid, ready for unloading. The buyer’s only tasks are unloading and receipt.
DDP sells certainty to the buyer, one all-in price, and imports the seller into a foreign compliance regime: it must clear customs in the buyer’s country, pay duty and tax, and often needs local registrations to do so lawfully. Sellers without destination-country capability routinely misprice or stumble on DDP.
Because VAT-style taxes may not be recoverable by a foreign seller, parties sometimes vary toward DDP-except-VAT arrangements; whatever the fix, it belongs in writing. Where the seller cannot clear imports at all, DAP is the honest term.
Under DDP the seller answers for the whole physical and administrative chain, so its team needs the complete timeline: origin events, voyage, discharge, clearance friction, and final delivery. That is the full span TrackingMCP covers per container, and the buyer needs only the delivery ETA falling out of it.
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.
DDP, Delivered Duty Paid, is the Incoterm placing maximum obligation on the seller: deliver the goods to the named destination place cleared for import, with duties and taxes paid, ready for unloading. The buyer’s only tasks are unloading and receipt.
It demands import capability in the buyer’s country: registrations, broker relationships, duty financing, and exposure to clearance delays. Priced properly it is expensive; priced casually it is a loss generator.
The seller, as importer-side responsible party, bears clearance risk and the associated costs to the named place, subject to any contractual carve-outs the parties agreed.
Full-chain tracking for DDP sellers →
Destination gateways →
More in Incoterms, rates & risk: Incoterms · EXW (Ex Works) · FCA (Free Carrier) · FOB (Free On Board) · CFR (Cost and Freight) · CIF (Cost, Insurance and Freight) · DAP (Delivered at Place) · Spot rate vs contract rate · Force majeure · General average · Letter of indemnity (LOI) · Browse all 106 terms →