Cargo Tracking Note: What It Is, Who Files It, and What Every Destination Requires

What a cargo tracking note is

A cargo tracking note is a pre-arrival declaration. Before the cargo reaches the destination port, the shipping documents — Bill of Lading, commercial invoice, freight and insurance values, HS codes, shipper and consignee identity — are submitted to the destination country’s shippers’ council or customs authority. The authority checks the data, registers it, and issues a certificate carrying a unique reference number.

That number is the point of the whole exercise. It ties a physical container to a declared value and a declared consignee before anyone at destination can change the story. Customs at the discharge port reconciles the manifest against the registered certificate. If there is no certificate, or the numbers do not reconcile, the cargo is not released.

Why the requirement exists

• ▪Revenue protection. Import duty is assessed on declared value. A certificate filed at origin, before the goods are anywhere near the destination customs officer, makes under-declaration harder.
• ▪Trade statistics. Shippers’ councils use the filings to measure import volumes, freight costs paid out to foreign carriers, and route dependency.
• ▪Security and manifest control. Advance cargo declaration regimes — Sudan, Yemen, Kenya, Egypt — exist primarily to screen consignments before loading rather than to price them.

The certificate is a customs prerequisite, not a shipping document. It does not replace the Bill of Lading, the certificate of origin or an import licence. It sits alongside them.

The many names for the same certificate

The document has a different name in almost every jurisdiction, which is why importers so often believe they are dealing with several unrelated requirements. They are not. Each entry below is a variant of the same instrument — the full abbreviation breakdown is on what does CTN stand for.

The filing lifecycle

The sequence is the same in every jurisdiction. What changes is the cut-off.

1. 1
   Booking confirmed

   As soon as the vessel and routing are fixed, the destination requirement is known. Check whether the discharge port is the final destination or a transit point — several countries treat landlocked transit cargo differently, and the routing has to be documented from the start.
2. 2
   Draft Bill of Lading issued

   The draft BL provides the container numbers, seals, weights, vessel and voyage. Most authorities accept a draft to open the file. Almost none accept a draft to close it.
3. 3
   Submission — draft back in 3–6 hours

   The Bill of Lading, commercial invoice and any country-specific documents go to the authority or its appointed agent. The data on the submission has to match the documents exactly, not approximately.
4. 4
   Validation — 3–6 hours once approved and paid

   The authority reconciles the declaration against the documents and, where it has access, against the carrier’s manifest. Queries are raised here, and every query costs time the vessel is not waiting for.
5. 5
   Certificate number issued and placed on the Bill of Lading

   For most destinations the number must appear on the Bill of Lading itself — on the face of it, in the cargo description, or on the master BL specifically.
6. 6
   Arrival and clearance

   The consignee presents the certificate at destination. Angola is the notable exception in requiring the original hard copy to be couriered to the importer; most destinations accept an electronic copy.

Who is legally responsible

The shipper, or the freight forwarder acting for the shipper. Not the consignee, and not the carrier.

This surprises exporters who assume a destination-country requirement is the destination-country importer’s problem. It is not. The certificate is filed at origin, from origin documents, and the penalty for a missing certificate is levied on the cargo — which means it lands on whoever is trying to release it, and then contractually back on the shipper.

• ▪Egypt (ACID). The Egyptian importer registers on the NAFEZA portal first and obtains the ACID number. The foreign exporter then completes the filing and quotes the number on the Bill of Lading and commercial invoice. Neither side can finish alone.
• ▪Advance cargo declaration regimes (Sudan, Yemen). The reference must exist before loading at the origin port. Responsibility sits with the shipper by definition, because after loading there is no compliant path.

Where an importer needs a prior national document — Angola’s Documento Único, Ivory Coast’s and DR Congo’s FDI, Madagascar’s GASYNET registration — the importer must obtain it, but the shipper cannot file without it. Confirm it exists before the vessel is booked.

Deadlines: when the certificate is due

Cut-offs are set per destination and are revised by the authorities without much notice, so the anchor matters more than a memorised number. Filing at booking is safe everywhere.

• ▪West and Central Africa (BESC, BSC, ECTN, FERI, BIETC, CEE). The recorded anchor for most of these destinations is validation before the vessel arrives, with filing at booking strongly preferred. Liberia and Republic of Congo are recorded against sailing rather than arrival.
• ▪Angola. Validation anchored to arrival, and the importer must present the original hard-copy certificate to release the cargo. Courier time has to be built into the plan.
• ▪Advance cargo declaration regimes (Sudan, Yemen). The reference must be obtained before loading at the origin port. There is no retrospective filing.
• ▪Egypt (ACID). The ACID number is registered before the cargo is shipped and must be printed in the body of the Bill of Lading.
• ▪East Africa (Kenya ACD). Documents submitted after the vessel departure deadline are rejected.

Because the anchors are route-dependent, confirm the cut-off for your specific voyage rather than working from a general rule. Every country page states the position for that destination.

Validity and amendments

A validated certificate is issued against one shipment: one Bill of Lading, one vessel, one voyage, one consignee. It does not carry over to the next shipment and it is not a licence with a renewal date. If the shipment changes, the certificate has to change with it.

What can be amended after validation, and at what cost, is set by each authority. Some restrict amendments outright; most charge for them. Where a prerequisite national document has its own validity — Angola’s Documento Único, for example — that document’s expiry governs whether the filing can proceed at all, which is why we check it at the start rather than at validation.

What happens without a valid certificate

The general pattern, wherever you are shipping: a fixed or multiplied fine at the port, plus demurrage and storage accruing daily while the cargo sits undeliverable. The fine is usually the smaller number. Use the demurrage calculator to size the second one before deciding whether a filing is urgent.

• ▪Cargo not released. Angola requires the original hard copy before release. DR Congo cargo may be held at Matadi or Boma until the FERI and related taxes are settled.
• ▪Percentage-of-value fines. Cameroon fines for a missing or incorrect BESC can reach 30% to 50% of the CIF freight value, plus storage and demurrage at Douala.
• ▪Multiples of the certificate cost. Angola applies penalties of twice the certificate cost, plus standard regulatory fines, for shipments arriving without a validated CNCA or with false declarations.
• ▪Return to origin. Cargo reaching Egypt without a valid, matched ACID is refused customs release and returned to the origin country at the shipper’s expense.
• ▪Refusal to load. Sudan and Yemen check the reference at the load port, so cargo without one can be stopped from shipping at all.

Required documents

Three documents are the minimum for almost every destination: the Bill of Lading and the commercial invoice everywhere, and the freight invoice in 29 of the 30. Everything else is a country variation.

Cost structure

Every quote has two lines. The first is the statutory charge the destination authority sets for registering the certificate — it belongs to the authority, not to us, and it varies by destination and shipment profile. The second is our service fee for preparing the file, checking it against the destination’s published requirements, filing it and handling queries.

Both lines are fixed and shown before anything is filed, so the invoice you approve is the invoice you pay. Amendment charges, where an authority allows amendments at all, are quoted separately at the time.

Destination directory — all 30

The filing anchor below is the anchor recorded for each destination. Where it is blank, no anchor is on file and the cut-off is confirmed per route.

Full destination index: /destinations. All comprehensive guides: /guides.

Frequently asked questions

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