A seal number is the identifier of the tamper-evident seal locking a container’s doors, applied at stuffing and recorded on the bill of lading and customs filings. An intact seal matching the documents evidences that the box was not opened between sealing and delivery.
Maritime security regimes require high-security bolt seals meeting the ISO 17712 standard for international moves. The number is verified at each interchange: origin gate, vessel, discharge gate, delivery. A broken, substituted, or mismatched seal triggers inspection, insurance, and liability questions immediately.
Legitimate reseals happen, notably after customs examinations, and must be documented with the new number appended to the record; an undocumented mismatch is treated as potential tampering or theft. Insurers and carriers read the seal record first in any shortage claim, because an intact original seal shifts the enquiry from pilferage in transit toward what was actually stuffed at origin.
Seal integrity lives in the interchange records that parallel tracking events: every gate transaction checks the seal against the paperwork. When a tracked container shows an examination stop, expect a reseal note on the file; when delivery finds a mismatch with no such note, the tracked custody chain in TrackingMCP identifies which leg to question.
A seal number is the identifier of the tamper-evident seal locking a container’s doors, applied at stuffing and recorded on the bill of lading and customs filings. An intact seal matching the documents evidences that the box was not opened between sealing and delivery.
The party stuffing the box, normally the shipper or its packer, using a compliant high-security seal; the number goes into the shipping instruction and onto the bill of lading.
Stop, photograph, and record before opening; notify the carrier and insurer and note the discrepancy on the delivery receipt. The interchange chain then localises where the change occurred.
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