Export documents for your next shipment
Make commercial invoices, packing lists and certificates of origin for your shipments. Download PDF, Excel or Word files for free, without an account.
Commercial Invoice
Add your seller, buyer, goods and payment details. Choose which entries to copy when you open another document.
| Item # | Description | HS Code | Qty | Unit | Unit Price (USD) | Amount (USD) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
We hereby certify that this invoice is true and correct, that the goods described are of origin, and that the prices stated are the actual prices paid or payable.
What you issue
A binding quotation in invoice form, issued before shipment so the buyer can open a letter of credit or arrange an import licence.
The primary customs valuation document: what was sold, to whom, on what terms, and for how much.
Full itemised packing list with HS codes, marks and numbers, package types and per-item dimensions.
Certifies where goods were produced. Usually stamped by a chamber of commerce and required to claim tariff treatment or satisfy a letter of credit.
The carrier's receipt for the goods, evidence of the contract of carriage, and a document of title the consignee must surrender to collect the cargo.
The agreement itself: goods, price, delivery terms, payment and the clauses both parties sign against.
What goes wrong
The invoice and the packing list are read together
Customs uses the commercial invoice for the value and the packing list for what is physically in the boxes, and compares the two. A shipment invoiced for 500 pieces and packed as 480 gets stopped, whichever number is right, because the documents no longer describe one shipment. Read the two side by side before they go out. It is the cheapest check there is.
Origin is where it was made
Not where it shipped from, and not where your company is registered. Goods made in Vietnam, stored in Singapore and shipped to Rotterdam are of Vietnamese origin. If a certificate gets this wrong and a reduced duty rate was claimed on it, you have claimed a duty relief you were not entitled to. That is a serious matter, not a typing error.
Always quote the Incoterm with the price
The same goods priced EXW and CIF differ by the cost of freight, insurance and clearance. Put the Incoterm and the named place together on the quotation, copy them onto the invoice, and check that they match the transport document. Customs uses the Incoterm to decide whether freight is part of the declared value.
Filling them in
Field-by-field walkthroughs of the documents above.
Questions
+Which document should I fill in first?
Start with the commercial invoice. It holds the parties, the terms and the goods. When you open another document, you can choose which details to copy across.
+Do I need a certificate of origin for every shipment?
No. You need one when the destination country asks for it, when a letter of credit lists it, or when you claim a reduced duty rate under a trade agreement. For a reduced rate you need that agreement's own form, not a general certificate.
+My invoice and packing list disagree on the piece count. Does it matter?
Yes. It is one of the most serious errors you can make. Customs compares the two numbers, and a mismatch gets the shipment stopped whichever number is correct.
+Can I put my own part numbers in the goods description?
Yes, next to a plain description. Not on their own. Nobody at a border can classify “Item 4471-B”. A description that cannot be classified is the most common cause of a customs query.
Who uses this
Exporters
Make the invoice, packing list and certificate of origin for a shipment in one go, without typing the consignee's address four times.
Freight forwarders
Turn a client's spreadsheet into a clean set of documents that a customs broker will accept.
Customs brokers
Rebuild a missing or unusable document from the details you already have.