A held container is rarely held for an interesting reason. It is held because a name on the document does not match a name on the manifest, or because a field that everyone assumed was optional was not. These are the six that come up most.
1. The consignee name does not match the manifest
Trading names, legal names and abbreviations are used interchangeably in correspondence and are not interchangeable on a document. If the booking says one thing and the bill of lading says another, someone has to reconcile them before the cargo moves.
2. Notify party left blank because "the consignee knows"
The notify party exists so arrival can be communicated without depending on the consignee being reachable. Leaving it blank works until the one shipment where it does not, and that shipment is usually the urgent one.
3. Weights that disagree with the packing list
Gross and net weight discrepancies are among the most common causes of a documentary hold, and they usually come from a unit assumption — kilograms recorded where the packing list is in pounds, or a pallet weight included in one place and not the other.
4. Container and seal numbers transcribed by hand
Container numbers have a check digit precisely because they are mistyped so often. If the number is being read off a photograph and typed into a form, assume a failure rate and design around it.
5. Description of goods that is too vague to clear
"General cargo" is not a description. Customs authorities need enough specificity to classify, and a vague description guarantees a query — which costs more time than writing the accurate one would have.
6. Dates that contradict the vessel schedule
A shipment date that precedes the loading date, or an expected delivery that does not allow for transit, signals a document assembled from a template rather than from the actual booking. It attracts scrutiny even where it is not itself the problem.
- Keep expected and actual delivery as separate fields — collapsing them hides slippage.
- Record the date the vessel actually sailed, not the date it was scheduled to.