CPT — Carriage Paid To
The any-mode equivalent of CFR: the seller pays carriage to the destination, risk passes to the first carrier at origin.
- Group
- C — Main carriage paid
- Transport mode
- Any mode, including multimodal.
- Named place
- The place of destination the seller has paid carriage to.
- Main carriage paid by
- Seller
- Risk passes
- Delivery to the first carrier
- Export clearance
- Seller
- Import clearance and duties
- Buyer
- Seller must insure
- No obligation on either party. Arrange your own cover.
- Unloading at destination
- Buyer.
CPT works for any transport mode and any combination of them. The seller contracts and pays for carriage to the named destination, and risk passes when the goods are handed to the first carrier — which, in a multi-leg movement, may be a trucker collecting from the factory, long before anything reaches a port or airport.
That first-carrier point is the difference people miss when they treat CPT as a delivered term. The seller's payment obligation runs to the destination; their risk obligation ended in the yard.
There is no insurance obligation under CPT. If the buyer wants the main carriage insured, they arrange it themselves or agree CIP instead.
In a movement with a pre-carriage leg, risk passes to the first carrier — not at the port, and not at the airport. A seller who arranges a truck to the terminal has already transferred risk when that truck takes the goods.
Always write the rule with its named place and the version — CPT [named place], Incoterms 2020. The rule says nothing about when ownership transfers; that is for your sales contract.