How to read your invoice

Your Prime Freight invoice lists the freight charge plus any surcharges and accessorial fees that applied to your shipment. Most of these were already in your quote — Prime Freight includes known surcharges up front, so the invoice matches the quote unless something changed at the origin or destination. Customs duties and taxes are the main thing quoted and billed separately.

An invoice groups charges into a few buckets:

• Freight — the core cost of moving your cargo from port to port (or airport to airport). See Freight per unit explained for how this is priced.

• Origin charges — anything that happened before the main leg: pickup, export documentation, and origin handling.

• Surcharges — carrier fees layered on top of the base freight rate (see the glossary below).

• Destination charges — customs clearance, pickup and delivery, and any accessorial fees incurred on the delivery leg.

• Duties and taxes — customs duties and taxes, when Prime Freight advances them on your behalf.

Prime Freight's model is a straightforward markup on our freight costs. The underlying carriers set the rates we pay, and those rates move up and down over time. When a carrier surcharge applies, we pass it through — and we aim to show it on the quote so there are no surprises on the invoice.

Surcharges are extra fees carriers add on top of the base freight rate. They are a normal part of ocean and air freight. Here are the ones you're most likely to see.

A scheduled increase carriers apply to base ocean rates on a given trade lane. In U.S. trades, carriers must file a GRI at least 30 days before it takes effect, so they typically announce one at the start of a month to take effect the start of the next. Rates often drift down within a month, then step back up when the next GRI lands. A GRI usually applies to containers gated in at the container yard after a set cutoff date — so a container checked in before the cutoff is billed at the old rate.

A temporary surcharge carriers apply during high-demand periods. It can appear at any time of year but is most common ahead of the fall and winter holidays and before Chinese New Year. Like a GRI, it's announced on top of the base rate and can be reduced or cancelled.

A fuel surcharge that adjusts for changes in marine fuel (bunker) prices. When fuel costs rise, the BAF rises with them; a similar charge is sometimes billed as an EBS. Air freight has an equivalent fuel surcharge.

Carriers occasionally add temporary surcharges for port congestion, equipment shortages, or capacity crunches. These come and go with market conditions.

Note: Because carriers can postpone, cancel, or reduce an announced surcharge, Prime Freight bills the actual rate that was implemented — not the full amount originally announced. So a surcharge on your invoice may be lower than the figure a carrier first published.

Beyond carrier surcharges, some fees depend on what happens on the ground at delivery — for example a chassis split, a live-unload wait fee, or a pallet exchange. These are only billed if they actually occur, and they show as separate line items. See What's included vs excluded in your pricing and, for full-container moves, Trucking and drayage for FCL.

Say you import a 40-foot container of housewares. Your invoice might show a freight charge for the ocean leg, a GRI line if one took effect for your sailing, a BAF fuel line, customs clearance at destination, and pickup and delivery to your warehouse. If the delivery driver had to wait past the free time, you'd also see a trucking wait fee. Because the GRI and BAF were known when you booked, they were already in your quote — so the invoice total lines up with what you agreed to.

We believe in transparency: our quotes reflect the full amount we expect to invoice — including surcharges like GRI/GRA and PSS — with the exception of customs duties, which are estimated separately. Every quote shows a validity date; ship within it and you pay the agreed price. If you ship after it expires, we may issue a revised quote to reflect current surcharges. If your invoice is higher than your quote, see Why is my invoice higher than my quote? for the usual reasons.

• What's included vs excluded in your pricing

• Freight per unit explained

• Pickup and delivery fees

• Why is my invoice higher than my quote?

• Freight & shipping glossary