Reference
The SCMTR reference
What the regulation asks for, field by field and code by code — including the places where what customs actually accepts differs from what the published guidance says.
SCMTR glossary
Every term you will meet filing under SCMTR — CSN, SAM, master versus house, reporting events — in plain language.
SCMTR rollout, amendment windows and penalties
When SCMTR became mandatory at each port, when a manifest is due, how late it can be amended without approval, what an amendment costs and the ₹50,000 penalty — from CBIC circulars and customs public notices.
ICES Advisory 38/2026: the six FAQs
Customs’ six answers of 21 September 2026 on CSN, SAM and SAA amendments, one by one: house bills added after a straight-bill SAM by dropping the line item and re-adding it as consolidated (with a CSN) or in full (without one), why a straight↔consolidated change, a consolidator PAN or a CSN/PCIN/MCIN reference is never an in-place update, what msgTyp F/A and amdType S/D/U mean, the container ISO code and agent PAN checks moved off the CSN onto the SAM, deleting and re-filing a CSN before the SAM, and the re-engineered acknowledgements — with what each changes for a forwarder and for a line, what the app does about it, and what no acknowledgement has yet shown.
Chennai customs’ SCMTR help desk
Chennai customs’ SCMTR help desk (Public Notice 130/2026, 23 September 2026): which officer takes which vessel, their phone numbers and e-mail, why a refused SAA or SCA’s Unique ID goes to them at once — and the Commissioner’s letter of 24 September telling every line to process pending consol cases and report each failed delete-and-re-file.
Which SCMTR message do I file?
SACHM22 and SACHM23 are different messages, not versions of each other. Who files which, how to read a declaration filename, why a higher number does not mean your message is out of date — and what container domestication is, and why no SCMTR message files it.
How sea cargo moves
The parties, the documents, and where a declaration actually fits in the movement of a container.
Containers, shared boxes, and FCL vs LCL
Where containers are declared, how two house bills say they are in the same box, why the weights differ between the house bill and the master, and why a shared container is LCL on the bill and FCL on the master.
Two companies, one master bill of lading
You and the shipping line both file against the same master B/L, and customs cross-validates the pair. Their filing is also your deadline — what closes it, what customs actually compares, and what to do when it has shut.
What the line and the forwarder must match
Every field a shipping line’s SAM/SDM and a forwarder’s CSN can be compared on, in three groups — Fix (customs has refused filings for it), Check (should match) and OK to differ — measured over both sides of bills customs accepted.
What customs already holds
CBIC’s September-2026 public enquiry lists every accepted filing against a master bill of lading, from the moment customs accepts it — who filed, what they declared, and what the platform does with that: confirming acceptance, warning when another filer disagrees, and recovering lost tracking ids.
Where is my cargo?
Three questions that sound like one: whether customs accepted your filing, whether the carrier has filed their manifest, and where the container physically is — and which system can answer each.
"This is not a valid IGM"
A Bill of Entry is checked against the Import General Manifest, which is raised at arrival — so a shipment can be accepted under SCMTR, visible on ICEGATE’s new enquiry, and still refused on the BoE. What the error means, what an SAA amendment has to do with it, and how to tell which side is waiting.
Dangerous goods: UN numbers and IMDG classes
The two coded fields hazardous cargo adds, why the class fills itself from the UN number, and why the IMDG proper shipping name is not the US one.
What an ICEGATE login lets you look up
The enquiries a signed-in sea agent gets that the public page does not — the transhipper bond register, PCINs, your own CSNs — and ICEGATE’s own list of customs locations.
Transhippers, CFSs and bond numbers
Who the transhipper is, where a CFS code comes from, why the same operator files under a different bond at every port, and why a move into an SEZ names none.
Party codes and PANs
Where a party’s PAN actually comes from (a GSTIN already contains it), what code a government department files under, why the container agent code is not the shipping line’s PAN, and what to file for a foreign line with no PAN at all.
Household goods and personal effects
The consignee on a house move has no IEC and is not meant to have one. What identity to file instead, the item type that says the goods are baggage, which of it customs actually validates — and why none of it applies to exhibition cargo or company goods.
House bills missing from the line’s manifest
Getting a consolidation’s house bills onto the shipping line’s arrival manifest, from the forwarder’s side: why the supplementary IGM route closed on 12 August 2026, which of Advisory 37/2026’s two routes applies (the line adds them by SAA where no CSN was filed in time; you amend the CSN and the line references it where one exists), why officer approval applies only after Sea Entry Inwards and the version circulating in the trade that says otherwise is wrong, what the line needs from you (the CSN number and its date, from the acknowledgement), why the line’s amendment must carry the house bills but not their transport document or item details (370 and 118), customs’ 24-hour target against the trade’s reported 10–15 days, what it costs, why no demurrage waiver covers the wait, how this differs from a split bill of lading — and the three things about it nobody has established.
One consignment, several transmissions
Customs answers a transmission rather than a shipment, so a corrected filing leaves you holding two acknowledgements and often only one CSN — the one number that should appear in the file name, in decRef.jobNo and in the message header alike, when a second transmission needs a number of its own, which reply answers which file, and why the date in an acknowledgement’s name is the day ICEGATE replied rather than the day you filed.
How to file a CSN
Who files a Cargo Summary Notification, the filing flow end to end, and what changes with each reporting event.
What accepted filings actually carry
Where published guidance and production behaviour differ, read off real filings and the acknowledgements customs returned for them.
Coded values
Every coded value a CSN asks for, what each code means, and which ones real filings actually use — down to the size code and package type for an ISO tank.
CSN field reference
All ~294 fields in a Cargo Summary Notification, each with its JSON key and what it is asking for.
Where the cargo goes after the gateway port
CFS, ICD, SEZ or picked up at the port — how that one fact decides the cargo movement code, the two itinerary legs, the port fields and the transhipper block, from a working filer’s real practice; why an ICD movement never mentions an SMTP; and cargo going on to Nepal or Bhutan, with what customs has said and what is still unknown.
Cargo type, movement and consolidation
Cargo type, cargo movement, the consolidation indicator and the prior-declaration flag are validated as one combination, not four fields — errors 115, 118 and 126. The MIG’s own table of every combination customs accepts, what each movement code means in customs’ own words, why import cargo never takes TC — and how transhipment (TC) cargo is filed field by field: TR + TC on an import bill, the foreign port as its destination and port of receipt, what customs has accepted and what is only sent.
Exports: filing an SCX, shipping bills and PCINs
How to file an export CSN (SCX, CSN Exit) from start to finish. The two shapes customs accepted in September 2026 — a straight bill naming its shipping bill’s PCIN, and a consolidation with one line per shipping bill under a master that names none — with the ports, the totals and the containers each line needs, and the code each mistake draws: 115, 159, 239/381, 286, 365, 383/384, 709 and 091. Prior declaration S and B, why one PCIN is one shipping bill, where to start an export in the app, and why one shipping bill cannot span several bills of lading.
Exports: who files the CSN, and when
Whose job the export CSN (SCX) is — customs calls it facilitative and lets only one party furnish a bill of lading’s details, while the shipping lines expect the forwarder to file and to post the CSN number and PCINs on their portal two to three days before the vessel. What the lines ask for and by when, when an SCX is due against the departure manifest (SDM) and notification (SDN), where to find the VCN for an export sailing (not on the cut-off notice), what gate cut-off, SI cut-off, VGM, Form 13, VIA, LEO and the EGM error letters mean — and what the S and Q in the EGM file a line may forward after its departure notification say about each shipping bill (Q, on the one call read: customs’ record still showed the shipping bill at stuffing, so it was not on the EGM).
Which port goes in which field
A CSN asks for five ports and most filings repeat one answer across three of them. What each field means, why port of receipt is the Indian port and not the foreign one, how to find the first port of entry, why the destination port is longer than the rest, what changes when the cargo moves inland — with the values two accepted filings actually carried — and where each port is in the guided steps, on the master bill page’s Route for all house bills when there are house bills.
Reference numbers and tracking
CSN, MCIN/PCIN, IGM, VCN, rotation number — who mints which, at what moment, and how to track a shipment.
ICEGATE error codes
All 452 business-validation codes in ICEGATE’s own wording, grouped by what to change, with how to read an acknowledgement file.
Every field in a shipping line filing
Every field ICEGATE’s SACHM23 guide describes — the vessel’s registry and tonnage, the voyage, every master and house consignment block, persons on board, ship stores and crew effects — in ICEGATE’s own words, with the JSON key and which ones the manifest editor puts on screen.
Reading a transhipper or custodian file
A CFS or a transhipper has sent you their own customs file, or quoted an error from one. Which of the two messages it is, what its reporting event means, which parts of it are actually about your cargo, and why two of its error codes are really about your CSN.
Every field a transhipper or custodian files
The two messages the inland leg produces — the transhipper’s allowed-for-shipment request, departure and arrival, and the custodian’s stuffing, stripping and timing reports — field by field from ICEGATE’s own guides, for when one of them lands on your desk.
Who else files against your cargo
The shipping line, the transhipper, the custodian and the port each file their own declaration — what each one is, and the three ways their filings reach you: a closed amendment window, a rejection that names your CSN’s PCIN, and being asked for a file that is not yours.
Which error list does my code come from?
ICEGATE fronts several customs systems and each answers from its own list: the CSN and manifest table, the custodian and transhipment messages’ alphanumeric codes (all 43, transcribed), the legacy Sea IGM, Consol IGM, ICD IGM and Bill of Entry lists — how the reply’s message id tells them apart, why 999 means three different things, and what is known about 994.
Reading an acknowledgement from customs
You filed and a JSON file came back. Which of the three files you have, what the verdict means, why some refusals carry no error code at all, and what to do about each thing it says.
Why customs rejects a filing
Rejection codes by family, what each one is really complaining about, and what to change to clear it.
Amendments and deletions
Changing or withdrawing a filing customs has already accepted — starting with “my CSN was accepted but the details are wrong” and the steps in the app, for a filing made here or on the portal — why a deletion is not its own message type, and how a substituted vessel is corrected before the line’s filing shuts the window.
Filing through the ICEGATE API
Registration, why no API key is needed to file from here, the two levels of validation, and what submission actually does on the wire.
Registering for SCMTR on ICEGATE
An ICEGATE ID is not enough — filing needs a separate SCMTR registration that Customs approves. Which entity type your role makes you, what to upload, why only one port is asked for, and the three fields you can never change afterwards.