What customs already holds

In September 2026 CBIC opened a new public enquiry — announced as the CSN / SAM / SDM Tracking Facility — that answers a question nothing public could answer before: which SCMTR filings customs has accepted against a master bill of lading, and what they declared. This page explains what that record is, who can see it, and the three things the platform does with it.

What is on the record, and from when?

Every accepted CSN and manifest filed against a master bill, from the moment customs accepts it. For each filing: who filed it (their PAN), when, the container numbers with their size, type and load status, the package and weight totals, and the filing's own reference numbers.

Each container row also ends with an Agent Code and a BOND NO. Those are the container agent's PAN (usually the shipping line or its agency) and that company's container bond, the one bond it gives customs so its boxes can enter India and be re-exported without duty. It is not the transhipment bond and not anything your CSN declares. See What is the BOND NO on the ICEGATE tracking page?

Two boundaries matter as much as the contents:

Only accepted filings appear. A rejected filing never shows up, and a filing that has not been decided yet shows up only once it is. Absence means "nothing accepted yet" — it never means "rejected". That is the enquiry as of September 2026: customs has announced a submission-status enquiry for manifest files (ICES Advisory 38/2026, 21 September 2026), under implementation and not live, so nothing here relies on it. Two measured qualifications (September 2026): a CSN whose deletion was acknowledged was still listed three weeks later, dated the deletion day — so present does not mean open to amendment; and one bill went blank for a while after an accepted update amendment, the filer's fresh re-entry then being accepted as a second CSN — so absent does not always mean never filed. See an accepted amendment can empty the record.One filing per filer per bill — the latest — and dated as the latest. The record's date is the date of the version customs accepted most recently, not of the original, so a record dated after the file on your disk means customs holds a later version than that file: an amendment, or a re-filing. The checker reads it that way when it compares a file (which is right?). Where a filer has sent, amended and re-entered a bill, the record shows the latest accepted version and its reference numbers, not the history. On a forwarder's consolidation the other filer listed is normally the shipping line's own declaration, under the PAN the line files with — which is how six lines' PANs in the Consolidator PAN search came to read as customs records it.It is public. Anyone who knows the bill of lading number and the port can look it up — no ICEGATE login, no relationship to the shipment required. That is CBIC's deliberate design: a bill number is treated as enough to see what customs holds against it. The commercial detail inside a filing (goods descriptions, item lines, values) is not part of this record.

This is a different source from the older Sea Arrival Manifest enquiry, not a newer version of it. That one reads the carrier's Import General Manifest, which only exists once the vessel has arrived; this one reads the SCMTR filings themselves, so it answers days earlier — typically from the moment a CSN is accepted, well before the vessel is at the port.

Once the two do meet, the record says so: each house line carries the IGM line and sub-line it was mapped onto, empty until the manifest exists and populated afterwards. The master row above the house lines never carries one, even when the bill is on the IGM, so it is the house lines that answer. For a straight bill with no house bill, the older manifest enquiry gives the line, at sub-line 0. So one lookup answers both "has customs accepted this" and "has it reached the manifest yet" — the second being what anything downstream, a Bill of Entry included, is actually waiting on. See When the Bill of Entry cannot find the manifest.

How do I look a bill up?

Two ways, depending on who is asking:

Signed in: BL tracking in the header shows every accepted filing against the bill and the carrier's manifest as one shipment. ? → Customs lookup asks the same record with the port already set to the one your organisation files at, and adds two things BL tracking does not: which of the filings are yours, and whether the master is still open to you.Anyone at all: the public tracking page at /track asks the same question with no sign-in, alongside the manifest and arrival status — see Tracking your cargo.

Why does the tracking page show only the last four characters of a PAN?

Because anyone with a bill number can open it. ICEGATE's own enquiry prints each filer's PAN, the shipping line's, the transhipper's and each container agent's in full; the public tracking page shows the last four characters of each (••••••675N), which is enough to tell two filers apart and to recognise your own. If you need a whole PAN from the record, ICEGATE's own enquiry has it.

The same page marks a fact a filer's CSN states and the shipping line's own manifest — its SAM, or the port's manifest view once the ship is in — states too: also on the shipping line's manifest. Two filers giving the same weight may simply have copied the same figure from each other; the carrier's own manifest bearing it out is a separate confirmation.

When the page says neither a CSN nor the line's SAM is on record, that is the ordinary state early on — but not a promise about later. The line files its SAM before the vessel arrives (on the bills measured here it was accepted one to three days before entry inward), not once the ship is in, so look again as the arrival date approaches.

Why did I get an email saying another filer disagrees with my CSN?

Because the window to fix it may be closing, and it would close silently.

On a consolidated shipment two parties file against the same master bill — you and the shipping line — and customs cross-checks the two filings against each other on a fixed set of equipment facts: total packages, total containers, and each box's number, type, size and load status (see Two companies, one master bill). Once the other party's CSN is accepted against yours, customs' error list has a refusal for amending or deleting your CSN — error 320, not yet seen on a reply — so a disagreement is safest fixed before then; if 320 does come back, the route is the shipping line and your jurisdictional customs officer. (The line's manifest on its own is not a reason for it: since ICES Advisory 37/2026 of 18 September 2026 an amendment is still filed after it.)

The platform checks the public record for your filed bills in the background. When the shipping line's manifest or another filer's accepted CSN appears against your master bill and a field that must match differs from yours, it emails you: which values differ, what you declared, what they declared, and a link to your filing. The subject says how much it matters:

"Action needed: …" — a difference customs has refused filings for (the bill date, packages, the number of containers, a load status), on a filing that quotes yours."Check: …" — a field that should match and does not, but that customs has not been seen refusing (a container type, a weight, a port). Usually a typo on one side.

A difference customs allows — the first Indian port, the line's own container bond, anything on a line that carries the bill itself rather than quoting your CSN — is never e-mailed. Each other filer's filing is e-mailed about once, not every time the record is read. What must match lists every field and its group.

What to do with it: read the differences and decide whose figures are wrong. If yours are, amend now — the measured pattern across real shipments is that the counterparty files 2 to 4 days after you, so the window is real but short. If theirs are, tell them: their filing is the one that has to change, and yours cannot be accepted against it while the two disagree. If the difference is genuinely immaterial to you, you can also do nothing — the email is a warning, not an obligation; the cost of ignoring a real conflict is that whoever files next is rejected on it.

Does the record carry the CSN number — and does the platform use it?

Yes, since September 2026, and yes, since 22 September 2026 — this is the quiet, important one. The enquiry now publishes the CSN number and date of each accepted filing beside its tracking handle (filings accepted before September 2026 may show none). The platform reads the record for every filing of yours still waiting on an answer, about every fifteen minutes for sixty days, and for a fresh filing sent from here — not an amendment or a deletion — it records the number and date and turns the filing accepted when the record names that very transmission, it is your organisation's only filing on the bill, and the record's packages and containers agree with what was sent. The filing's history says the outcome was read from customs' record, not from an acknowledgement.

Nothing is needed from you for this. Keep the acknowledgement ICEGATE emails all the same and drop it on the filing: it is customs' own file, and one that agrees with the record is kept as the transmission's answer. It applies only to accepted filings, for the same reason as everything above: rejections never reach the public record — as of September 2026, the submission-status utility customs announced in ICES Advisory 38/2026 being under implementation and not live — so a rejection still arrives only by email to the registered ICEGATE address.

Can this recover a filing that has no tracking id?

Yes. A filing marked Filed — not auto-tracked was accepted by customs but came back without its handle, so its CSN number was effectively lost (see After you file). The public record lists that same filing with its handle, because customs accepted it. The platform recovers the handle when the filing appears, and from there the reading above applies: where the record then names the transmission and agrees with what was sent, the CSN number is filled in and the filing turns accepted.

Does this mean I can copy the other filing's details before I file?

No — the timing runs the wrong way. Measured across real multi-filer shipments, the forwarder files first and the carrier follows days later; by the time anything is on the record for your bill, your own filing was already due. The record is for after you file — confirming yours was accepted, watching for the counterparty, and knowing when the amendment window closes — not a source to fill a declaration from.

The shipping line's filing names a different ship or call from mine — what does that mean?

That two accepted filings describe the voyage differently — and that an amendment of yours is not how it gets settled.

The record carries the IMO number and the VCN of every accepted filing, and the filing's page compares that pair against yours without asking customs anything further. Where they disagree it names which filing it is reading, because it is not always the line: it may be the shipping line's manifest, or another filer's CSN against the same master bill. If it is another filer's CSN, customs' error list has a refusal for amending yours — 320, CSN is Linked to Other CSN- Amendment is Not Allowed. If it is the line's manifest, your CSN can still be amended since ICES Advisory 37/2026 (18 September 2026) — but not on this point, because the same advisory excludes the VCN and rotation number from a CSN amendment. Either way an update carrying the other party's ship and call is not the route, whichever of you is right.

How firm is that? The advisory is customs' own published text. The 320 half is read off customs' published error list rather than from a filing: no filing made here has been refused on 320, and the cross-checks customs publishes between two filings on one bill are the container facts — whether it compares the ship and the call at all, its error list does not say. The disagreement is evidence that two accepted filings describe the voyage differently. It is not evidence that yours is the wrong one, and it is not a refusal.

So read it as information rather than a task. Confirm from the record who filed and when — the same lookup carries both — then settle it with the line and your jurisdictional customs officer rather than through any portal. Its real value is early warning: a vessel substituted without notice often shows up here before anyone tells you.

Related

Tracking your cargo — the public lookup, and sharing itTwo companies, one master bill — the deadline the counterparty's filing may create, and error 320After you file — statuses, acknowledgements, and untracked filingsIdentifiers and tracking — every reference number and who mints it