FCA — Free Carrier
The seller clears the goods for export and hands them to a carrier the buyer chose. The standard rule for containers.
- Group
- F — Main carriage unpaid
- Transport mode
- Any mode, including multimodal.
- Named place
- Where the goods are handed to the carrier. The seller's premises, a depot, or a terminal.
- Main carriage paid by
- Buyer
- Risk passes
- Delivery to the buyer's 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.
FCA works in two ways, depending on the named place. If the named place is the seller's premises, the seller loads the goods onto the buyer's vehicle, and risk passes once they are loaded. If it is anywhere else, the seller delivers the goods on their own vehicle, ready for unloading, and risk passes there. The seller does not unload.
Export clearance is the seller's job. That is the main improvement on EXW, and the reason FCA is the sensible choice for almost any container shipment.
Incoterms 2020 added an option for letters of credit. The parties can agree that the buyer instructs the carrier to issue an on-board bill of lading to the seller. Before this, a seller delivering a container at an inland depot under FCA had no easy way to get the on-board bill their credit demanded. That is a large part of why people used FOB instead, and used it wrongly.
Name the place exactly. "FCA Shanghai" could mean the seller's factory or the port. Those are different delivery points, different risk transfer points and different costs.
Always write the rule with its named place and the version — FCA [named place], Incoterms 2020. The rule says nothing about when ownership transfers; that is for your sales contract.