The shipping instruction, or SI, is the shipper’s formal submission to the carrier of the details to appear on the bill of lading: parties, cargo description, marks, container and seal numbers, and freight terms. It must arrive before the SI cut-off for the booked vessel.
The SI is where the paperwork is fixed: what the shipper submits becomes the draft B/L, and errors here propagate into customs filings and letters of credit. Carriers issue a draft for verification, then the final document after vessel departure.
The SI references the booking and must reconcile with the VGM and the physical load. Late SIs are a classic cause of rollovers: no instruction, no manifest entry, no sailing.
The SI itself is not a tracked event, but its deadline sits inside the same countdown tracking covers: gate-in, cut-offs, load, departure. When a container shows gated in but the shipment later misses its vessel, a missed SI or VGM cut-off is a usual suspect. Confirm what actually loaded via the events in TrackingMCP, for example on HMM.
The shipping instruction, or SI, is the shipper’s formal submission to the carrier of the details to appear on the bill of lading: parties, cargo description, marks, container and seal numbers, and freight terms. It must arrive before the SI cut-off for the booked vessel.
The carrier cannot manifest your cargo for the intended vessel, so the shipment is typically rolled to the next sailing even if the container is physically at the terminal. Amendment fees and delays follow.
The SI is your input; the draft B/L is the carrier’s rendering of it for your check. Approving a draft with errors usually means paying for amendments after issuance.
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More in Booking, loads & cut-offs: Cut-off (SI, VGM, cargo, customs) · Verified gross mass (VGM) · LCL (less than container load) · FCL (full container load) · LCL vs FCL · Rollover (rolled cargo) · Browse all 106 terms →