New Arrival Notice 1.0.0 Standard published

Enables automatic confirmation of receipt, reduces manual rework and monitoring, and removes inconsistencies across carriers and geographies

The Digital Container Shipping Association (DCSA) has published its Arrival Notice 1.0.0 Standard, introducing a universal API to replace today’s fragmented, manual processes for distributing arrival notices. 

An Arrival Notice is a critical document issued by a carrier to the notify party, consignee or their agents, confirming that cargo is due to arrive at the designated port or terminal.  As a trigger for release and delivery processes, the Arrival Notice plays a central role in import operations, and yet, today, these notices are typically distributed as PDFs by email, leading to errors, delays, and costly disputes across the supply chain. Carriers face high workloads and limited visibility, while consignees struggle with inconsistent formats, missing updates, and heavy manual processing. 

The new DCSA standard defines arrival notices as structured data that can be exchanged machine-to-machine via API. It is designed for global use, supporting multiple languages and country-specific content requirements while maintaining a consistent data model. 

By replacing PDFs with structured data, the standard enables automatic confirmation of receipt, reduces manual rework and monitoring, and removes inconsistencies across carriers and geographies. It simplifies system integration, improves timeliness and accuracy, and helps reduce financial disputes on storage, detention and demurrage charges caused by late or missing Arrival Notices. 

The Arrival Notice standard extends DCSA’s standards into the import process, supporting the industry’s broader digitalisation goals, including 100% electronic bill of lading adoption. 

The Arrival Notice 1.0.0 Standard is available on the DCSA website and open for adoption by all industry stakeholders, informed a release.

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