Customs Reads These Side by Side
Packing Lists and Commercial Invoices
These two documents cause more customs holds than everything else in a shipping file put together, and almost never because either is wrong on its own. They are held because the two disagree — a quantity, a weight, a description, a value that does not reconcile. An officer comparing them does not know which one is right, only that something is, and the shipment waits while that is resolved. These two documents cause more customs queries than any others; our re-export documentation checklist shows how they sit alongside the rest of the file.
What Each One Carries
Two Documents, Two Jobs
They overlap deliberately, which is precisely why they have to match.
- Invoice: buyer, seller and terms of sale
- Invoice: description, quantity and value
- Invoice: currency and payment terms
- Packing list: how goods are packed
- Packing list: piece count, weights and dimensions
- Packing list: marks and package numbers
Want These Checked?
Send the invoice and packing list before you ship
Have Them Reviewed Call +971 4 239 7107The Four Fields That Cause Holds
Almost every discrepancy that stops a shipment lives in one of these.
Quantity
Piece counts that differ between the two documents. Usually a packing change nobody carried back to the invoice.
Description
"Spare parts" or "machinery" is not a description a customs officer can classify. Vague wording invites a question and a delay.
Value
Values that do not reconcile, or that omit elements which belong in the customs value - see duty and HS code assessment.
Weight
Gross and net weights that contradict each other or the transport document, which is the easiest discrepancy for a scanner to find.
Who actually writes them
These usually arrive from a supplier abroad who has no exposure to a hold at this end. Reviewing supplier-prepared documents before submission catches the majority of discrepancies - see import and export documentation.
How We Use Them
Prepared or Reviewed
Most of the value here is a second pair of eyes before submission.
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Prepared from your details
Built from the commercial information you supply, in a form that will classify cleanly.
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Checked against each other
Reconciled field by field, which is the check that prevents most holds.
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Checked against the cargo
Where the goods are in our warehouse, the documents can be verified against what is physically there.
Why Cannata
We Find It Before Customs Does
A discrepancy found at our desk is an edit. The same discrepancy found at a border is a held container and a demurrage clock.
Reconciled before filing
The two documents are compared against each other and the declaration before anything is submitted.
Verified against goods
Cargo in our own warehouses can be physically checked against the paperwork.
Same team files it
Prepared by the people who then submit the entry, so errors surface immediately.
Rate Request
Get a price for this shipment
Give us the route and the cargo and we will come back with a rate, usually within one working day.
Our FAQs
Frequently Asked Questions
What shippers ask about invoices and packing lists.
