Types of shipping bills

How many types of shipping bills in export

Shipping bills are filed as per the guidelines of customs department of each country. Before introduction of electronic filing system with customs department, documents are filed manually.

Why different types of shipping bills?

Let us discuss the reason for introducing different types of shipping bills for exports. As you are aware, most of the exports attract different incentives, duty exemptions or other export benefits. In some other types of exports, the exporter needs to pay duty to government of exporting country. Categorizing them at the time of filing documents for export is an easy task for customs to identify easily, under which category of exports fall under – whether duty to be paid, any export benefits availing etc.etc.

Types of shipping bills.

There are four main types of shipping bills in India. Duty free shipping bills, Dutiable shipping bill, Shipping bill under Duty draw back, Ex-bond shipping bills.

Colors of shipping bills:

Before introduction of electronic filing of shipping bills, these types of shipping bills are identified in different colors - Duty free shipping bill in White color, Dutiable shipping bill in yellow color, shipping bill for drawback in Green color and Ex-bond shipping bill in pink color. These colors help all concerned authorities to identify the exports under which type of shipment those export taken place.

Most of the customs locations in India have been introduced electronic filing of shipping bills. Manual filing of shipping bills also takes place in some of the customs locations where in electronic filing facility not available. Under special cases, some of the exports need physical verification of goods and valuation of goods manually. In such cases, customs higher authorities insist to file shipping bills manually to ascertain value of goods than declared value by exporter. In such cases, exporters file manual shipping bills.