Exports: who files the CSN, and when

How to build an export CSN — the two shapes, the PCINs, the ports, the containers — is in exports: filing an SCX, shipping bills and PCINs. This page is about everything around it: whose job the filing is, what the shipping line expects and by when, where the vessel call number comes from, and what the words on a line's export notice mean.

Two kinds of source are used here, and they are kept apart. Customs' own documents — CBIC's circulars and clarifications, ICEGATE's FAQs. And the shipping lines' advisories to their customers (ONE, CMA CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, Maersk, 2021–2026), which are commercial practice, not law: a line can ask for more than customs does, and its deadlines are its own.

Who files the export CSN — me or the shipping line?

Customs says either may. The shipping lines say: you.

What customs says (ICEGATE's SCMTR FAQ):

The CSN is a facilitative measure. A forwarder, NVOCC or consolidator may file it — or may instead hand the details to the vessel operator, who declares them in the departure manifest.Once one party has furnished a bill of lading's details, no one else can. So it is a race with one winner per bill: if the line has already declared your house bills in its manifest, your CSN for the same bills will not go in, and the other way round.

What the shipping lines say, in their advisories to exporters:

Forwarders and consolidators are responsible for filing the CSN, and for entering the CSN number and date against the master B/L on the line's documentation portal.If no CSN is filed, the line files the master B/L itself, from the shipping-bill details it holds — and any penalty that follows is the customer's.A forwarder who is not filing "the HBL at customs" (their phrase for filing a CSN) uploads the house B/L details to the portal instead, so the line can declare them.One line goes further and says it will not accept house bills filed through a third-party vendor on its behalf — that is that line's commercial rule, and says nothing about your filing your own CSN with whatever software you choose.

Must a forwarder file an SCX for a straight shipment — one shipping bill, one B/L, no consolidation? Nothing published says so either way; we looked. The message allows it (it is one of the two shapes customs accepted in September 2026), the FAQ makes it optional, and a line that holds the shipping bill and its PCIN can declare a straight bill itself. Ask the line whether it expects a CSN number from you for that booking.

What does the shipping line want from me, and by when?

Collected from the lines' advisories. Hours and portals differ by line — your line's own notice is the one that binds you.

ODeX is the portal most lines in India use for this (one line also names MMD3). It is a commercial documentation platform, not a customs system: posting a CSN number there tells the line, not customs. The line's departure manifest then quotes your CSN — or the MCIN customs issued to your consolidation — instead of re-declaring your cargo.

When is an export CSN due?

Customs' table says: before departure from the last port of call — the same line it gives for every CSN event, SCX included (ICEGATE's SCMTR FAQ). For an export, in practice, that means before the vessel sails from the Indian port with your cargo.

Around it, on the shipping line's side:

Nothing published sets the SCX's timing against the SDM's — no "so many hours before the departure manifest". The working deadline is therefore the line's own cut-off (the table above): the line needs your CSN number before it builds its manifest, and once it has declared your bills itself your CSN can no longer go in. File as soon as you hold the PCINs and the real VCN.

Why lines are strict about it: since the departure manifest replaced the line's old export general manifest (EGM) filing — at Chennai from 4 August 2025, at Nhava Sheva from 18 August 2025, and port by port since — exporters' incentives are tied to the SDM and SDN going in correctly, and a line amending a filed departure manifest needs customs' approval. The rollout dates, the transition period to 31 October 2026, the instruction that no penal action be taken during the implementation phase, and the penalty of up to ₹50,000 under Regulation 13 are all in Is SCMTR mandatory at my port yet?.

Where do I find the VCN for my export sailing?

Not on the line's cut-off notice. We read several lines' export cut-off advisories and sailing sheets: they give the vessel, the carrier's voyage number, the terminal and the cut-offs, and none of them carries the VCN or the rotation number. Nothing published names a document that hands a forwarder the VCN for an export sailing. The lines that mention it at all tell you to check it on ICEGATE.

Where it can be found:

ICEGATE's VCN / Rotation Number Enquiry — public, no login. Search by the vessel's IMO number and a date range; each call of the ship comes back with its port, VCN and rotation number.VCN search in this app — the same record, searchable by ship name, IMO number or VCN, signed in or not. See Finding the ship you are filing for.The port's own reports. Some ports publish the number: Mundra's vessel schedule report has a VCN column. Others do not: Nhava Sheva's berthing report identifies ships by VIA number, which is the port's reference for the call and not the VCN — do not type a VIA number into the conveyance reference.The line's export desk. The vessel operator applies for the VCN and the port assigns it, so the line has it before anyone.

The VCN is fourteen characters — the port code without IN, the year, the month, a four-digit serial — and the carrier's voyage number (0099E) is not it. What to do when the port has not issued one yet is in the vessel call number, start to finish.

What do the words on the shipping line's export notice mean?

My exporter is quoting an EGM error letter — what is that?

The export general manifest (EGM) has single-letter codes. A 2018 Board circular set them out, and exporters chasing a held-up incentive still quote them:

The circular is from the old system — the legacy EGM had no FCL/LCL field for a container at all, only an empty/loaded status — but the line no longer filing an EGM has not ended the letters. On the one SCMTR departure we have seen (Kolkata, 1 October 2026), customs still compiled an EGM, numbered with the rotation, and answered it shipping bill by shipping bill with a letter (next section). That letter comes from customs' current table, which overlaps the circular's but is not the same: in it T is Transhipment SB, nature of cargo is J, R is a record missing for the rotation and W is the weight. For a letter on an EGM file, go by customs' current words — every letter is in Which error list a code came from — not by this table.

The line forwarded me an EGM file after the vessel sailed — what do S and Q mean?

After the line files its departure notification (SDN), ICEGATE mails the line an outbound file named SACHE18A_<date>_<time>.out — on the one we have seen, a few minutes before the SDN's own Accepted reply. It is the export general manifest's answer: one row per shipping bill on the vessel — port, rotation, shipping bill number and date, its PCIN — and one letter. A line may forward it to the forwarders on its manifest, since the letter is the exporter's business. Customs' own words for the two letters seen (Kolkata, 1 October 2026), and what its record showed for each the next day:

So a Q shipping bill is one customs' record shows no stuffing recorded for — still at STUFF ALLOW, no seal — which is what the 2018 circular's Q, "stuffing report not filed", describes. The stuffing report (SF) is filed by the custodian where the box was stuffed — the CFS, ICD or terminal — under SCMTR across India since 25 November 2025 (Chennai Customs Public Notice 61/2025). It is not a fault in your CSN or the line's manifest: on that vessel the lines quoting those shipping bills were accepted like the rest. Take it up with the custodian that stuffed the box. What clears a Q once the ship has sailed — the custodian's late stuffing report alone, or that and the line's amendment or the EGM section's action — is not on record yet, so ask the port's EGM section rather than wait.

Catch it before the vessel sails: the public Shipping Bill Document Status enquiry on ICEGATE shows where customs has the shipping bill. A shipping bill still at STUFF ALLOW once its box has gated into the port is in the state every Q bill on that Kolkata vessel was in; chase the custodian then, not after the EGM. SCMTR's export filing shows the same thing when it fetches your shipping bill, and reads a forwarded .out file if you drop it into the file check.

Related

Exports: filing an SCX, shipping bills and PCINsTwo companies, one master bill of lading — the import-side version of the same raceWhich message do I file? — SCX against the line's SDMWho else files against your cargoIs SCMTR mandatory at my port yet?