Pre-carriage is the transport leg before the main ocean voyage: from the place of receipt to the port of loading. On-carriage is the leg after: from the port of discharge to the place of delivery. Both appear on through bills of lading covering more than port-to-port.
The terms slice a door-to-door journey into who-does-what: a barge or truck to the load port (pre-carriage), the main leg between POL and POD, then rail or truck onward (on-carriage). When the ocean carrier contracts these legs it is carrier haulage; when the shipper arranges them, merchant haulage.
Liability and cost follow the split: a through bill extends the carrier’s responsibility across the inland legs it sells, while port-to-port terms end it at the terminal.
On a tracked timeline, pre- and on-carriage are the events flanking the vessel: origin gate-in or inland pick-up before loading, rail and truck movements after discharge. TrackingMCP shows the flanking legs where carriers report them in tracking, which is exactly what separates a true door ETA from a mere vessel ETA.
Pre-carriage is the transport leg before the main ocean voyage: from the place of receipt to the port of loading. On-carriage is the leg after: from the port of discharge to the place of delivery. Both appear on through bills of lading covering more than port-to-port.
Either the ocean carrier as part of a through booking (carrier haulage) or the cargo side via its own truckers and forwarders (merchant haulage). The bill of lading’s receipt and delivery boxes reveal which.
Under a through or combined transport bill, yes within its terms; under port-to-port terms, no. The document type, not geography, sets the boundary.
Track beyond the port →
Port pages for both ends →
More in Inland moves & equipment: Drayage · Chassis · Street turn · Rail ramp · Inland container depot (ICD) · Multimodal vs intermodal · Carrier haulage vs merchant haulage · Reefer (refrigerated container) · High-cube container · Flat rack container · Out of gauge (OOG) · SOC vs COC containers · Tare weight · Seal number · Browse all 106 terms →