Freight has its own language. Here it is, plainly.

54 terms from a quote, a bill of lading, and a customs entry, defined without the jargon that usually explains them.

AWB (Air Waybill): The contract of carriage and receipt for an air shipment, issued by the airline or its agent. Unlike an ocean bill of lading, it is not a negotiable document of title.

Bill of Lading: The contract of carriage and receipt for goods issued by an ocean carrier or NVOCC. In negotiable form it also acts as a document of title, so whoever holds the original can claim the cargo at destination.
Bonded Warehouse: A secure facility, licensed by customs authorities, where imported goods can be stored, inspected, or manipulated without duties being paid until the goods are withdrawn for domestic use, or duties waived entirely if they are re-exported.
Break Bulk: Cargo too large, heavy, or oddly shaped for a standard container, loaded and secured individually rather than boxed. Common for machinery, steel, and project cargo.

Carrier Haulage / Merchant Haulage: Two ways inland container transport gets arranged. Carrier haulage means the ocean carrier arranges and is responsible for the truck or rail leg to or from the port; merchant haulage means the shipper or consignee arranges it directly with a trucker.
Chargeable Weight: The weight an air shipment is actually billed on: the greater of its actual weight and its volumetric weight, since light but bulky cargo takes up space a scale alone would not capture.
Chassis: The wheeled frame a shipping container sits on for road transport. A shortage of available chassis at a port or rail ramp is a common source of drayage delay.
Consolidation: Combining multiple shippers' smaller cargo loads into one container or one shipment so each shipper only pays for the space they use. The basis for LCL ocean service and consolidated air shipments.
Country of Origin: The country where a product is deemed, under customs rules, to have been made or to have last undergone substantial transformation. It drives tariff rates, trade-preference eligibility, and country-specific restrictions, and can differ from where a product was merely assembled or packaged.
Cross-Dock: A distribution model where inbound freight is unloaded and re-sorted directly onto outbound trailers with little or no warehouse storage in between, used to speed multi-stop or multi-origin shipments to their next leg.
Customs Broker: A licensed professional or firm authorized to clear goods through customs on an importer's behalf: classifying goods, filing entries, and paying duties and fees.

DDP (Delivered Duty Paid): An Incoterm where the seller takes on the maximum responsibility: delivering goods to the buyer's named destination with duties, taxes, and import clearance already handled.
De Minimis: A value threshold below which imported shipments can enter with reduced paperwork and no duty. This threshold, and the exemptions tied to it, have been in active flux in recent years in the US and elsewhere, so treat any specific dollar figure as subject to change rather than settled policy.
Demurrage: A fee a container line charges when a full container isn't picked up from the port or terminal within its allotted free time. It accrues on the box while it sits inside the terminal.
Detention: A fee, usually charged by the carrier, for holding onto a container or chassis outside the terminal, past its free time, before it's returned empty.
Drayage: Short-haul trucking of a container between a port or rail ramp and a nearby warehouse, distribution center, or rail yard.
Duty Drawback: A refund of duties, taxes, or fees paid on imported goods that are later exported, destroyed, or used to manufacture an exported product. One of the few mechanisms that lets an importer recover money already paid to customs.

Entry / Entry Summary: The paperwork that formally brings imported goods into a country's commerce. The entry declares the shipment for customs release; the entry summary, filed separately within a set number of days, provides the full valuation, classification, and duty calculation.
Exception: In shipment tracking, any event where a shipment deviates from its planned routing or timeline, such as a missed connection, a customs hold, or damaged cargo, that typically needs manual review rather than resolving on its own.
EXW (Ex Works): An Incoterm where the seller's only obligation is to make goods available at their own premises. The buyer takes on all transport, export clearance, and risk from that point forward, making it the seller's lightest-responsibility term.

FCL (Full Container Load): A shipment that fills, or is billed as filling, an entire container by itself, as opposed to sharing space with other shippers' cargo.
FEU (Forty-foot Equivalent Unit): A unit describing a 40-foot ocean container. Two TEU, or twenty-foot units, equal roughly one FEU by volume.
Flat Rack: A container with collapsible or fixed end walls and no roof or sides, used for oversized or heavy cargo that needs to be loaded from the top or sides, such as machinery or vehicles.
FOB (Free on Board): An Incoterm where the seller is responsible for the goods until they're loaded onto the vessel at the named port of origin, after which risk and, often, cost transfer to the buyer. Strictly an ocean or inland-waterway term, not used for air or multimodal shipments.
Free Time: The number of days a container can sit at a port terminal, or outside it once picked up, before demurrage or detention charges begin.
Freight Forwarder: An intermediary that arranges the movement of goods on a shipper's behalf: booking space with carriers, coordinating documentation, and often combining several other freight services rather than owning the vessels, aircraft, or trucks itself.
FTL (Full Truckload): A shipment large enough to fill a truck, or that a shipper books an entire trailer for, versus sharing trailer space with other shippers' freight.

Gate-In / Gate-Out: The moment a container physically enters (gates in) or leaves (gates out) a port or rail terminal, recorded as a timestamped milestone used to track free time and detention.

HS Code (Harmonized System Code): The standardized numeric code, maintained internationally, used to classify traded products for customs purposes. The first six digits are common worldwide; countries add further digits for their own tariff schedules.
HTSUS (Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States): The US-specific extension of the HS code system, used by CBP to determine the applicable duty rate and any trade-remedy or preference program that applies to an imported product.

IATA DG (Dangerous Goods): The classification, packaging, labeling, and documentation rules published by the International Air Transport Association for shipping hazardous materials by air. Airlines and forwarders handling DG cargo must certify compliance with them.
Incoterms: A set of standardized three-letter trade terms, published by the International Chamber of Commerce, that define which party is responsible for transport, insurance, customs clearance, and risk at each stage of an international shipment. Examples include EXW, FOB, and DDP.
ISF (Importer Security Filing): Also called 10+2. A set of data elements US importers, or their agents, must file with CBP before an ocean shipment is loaded at the foreign port, so authorities can screen cargo before it departs rather than only on arrival.

Landed Cost: The total cost of getting a product from origin to a buyer's door, including the goods themselves plus freight, insurance, duties, taxes, and handling fees. Used to compare the true cost of sourcing from different origins or routes.
LCL (Less than Container Load): A shipment too small to fill a container on its own, consolidated with other shippers' cargo into one shared container.
Liquidation: The final step in the US customs entry process, when CBP fixes the duty rate and amount owed on an entry as final. Before liquidation, a duty amount is provisional and can still be adjusted or protested.
LTL (Less than Truckload): A shipment too small to need a full trailer, combined with other shippers' freight on the same truck and typically priced by weight and freight class.

Milestone: A defined, trackable event in a shipment's lifecycle, such as booked, gated in, loaded, departed, arrived, cleared customs, or delivered, used to mark progress and flag delays against plan.

NVOCC (Non-Vessel Operating Common Carrier): A company that sells ocean freight service and issues its own bills of lading without owning or operating vessels. It buys space from ocean carriers and resells it, often bundled with forwarding services.

OOG (Out of Gauge): Cargo that exceeds the standard length, width, or height of a container, protruding beyond its normal dimensions and requiring special handling, stowage, and often a flat rack or open-top container.

Per Diem: A daily charge, similar in concept to detention, that a trucking company or equipment owner charges for use of a chassis or container beyond its allotted free days.
POD (Proof of Delivery): The signed or scanned confirmation that a shipment was received at its destination, typically noting the date, time, condition, and receiving party. The document that closes out a delivery and often triggers invoicing.

Reefer: A refrigerated shipping container or trailer with its own cooling unit, used for temperature-sensitive cargo like food, pharmaceuticals, and chemicals. It needs continuous power and monitoring throughout transit.
Rollover: When a container booked on a specific vessel voyage doesn't make it onboard, usually due to overbooking or a missed cutoff, and gets pushed to a later sailing.

Section 232: A US trade law provision, from the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, that lets the president impose tariffs or other restrictions on imports found to threaten national security; steel and aluminum tariffs are the most prominent recent use. Which products and rates are covered has changed multiple times, so current coverage should be checked against the latest proclamation rather than assumed.
Section 301: A US trade law provision, from the Trade Act of 1974, that lets the US Trade Representative impose tariffs in response to a foreign country's unfair trade practices; it has been the legal basis for tariffs on a large share of Chinese-origin goods in recent years. Product lists and rates have been revised repeatedly, so specifics should be checked against the current USTR notice rather than assumed.
Substantial Transformation: The customs test for whether processing or manufacturing performed on a good in a country is significant enough to give that country status as the good's country of origin. It generally requires a change in the product's name, character, or use, not just minor finishing steps.

Telex Release: An electronic instruction from a shipper, via their forwarder or agent, to a carrier's destination office, authorizing cargo release without the original paper bill of lading being presented. Used when the original documents wouldn't arrive in time.
TEU (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit): The standard unit for measuring container volume, based on a 20-foot container. Used to describe vessel capacity, port throughput, and shipment size.
Transload: Moving cargo from one mode or piece of equipment to another partway through its journey, for example unloading an ocean container at a port and reloading its contents into multiple domestic trailers for onward distribution.
Transshipment: Moving cargo through an intermediate port or hub, unloading it from one vessel and reloading it onto another, rather than sailing direct from origin to destination.

UFLPA (Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act): A US law that presumes goods made wholly or partly in China's Xinjiang region, or made by certain listed entities, were produced with forced labor, and blocks their import unless the importer can prove otherwise with clear and convincing evidence. Enforcement priorities and the entity list are updated periodically.
ULD (Unit Load Device): A container or pallet, built to standardized dimensions, used to load and secure cargo for air transport so it can be loaded into an aircraft's hold as a single unit rather than piece by piece.

Volumetric Weight: Also called dimensional weight: a weight calculated from a shipment's cubic dimensions rather than its scale weight. Used alongside actual weight to price freight, especially in air, so bulky-but-light cargo doesn't undercharge for the space it occupies.

Freight has its own language. Here it is, plainly.

Command menu