Transshipment in imports: what changes for ops teams

In the first four months of 2024, container transshipment at Brazilian ports grew 53%, rising from 559,000 to 856,000 TEUs, according to Santos Brasil as reported by Agência iNFRA. Large vessels on the main Asia-South America routes drop containers at Santos, Paranaguá or Rio de Janeiro, and feeders carry them on to Itajaí, Navegantes, Imbituba and other regional ports. For the importer, transshipment adds three to ten days to the transit. For the freight forwarder’s ops team, it touches at least four routines: tracking, cargo manifest documentation (CE Mercante, Brazil’s electronic cargo knowledge system), free time counting and communication with the overseas agent.

Transshipment turns one voyage into two operational legs

A direct import is straightforward: the vessel leaves the origin port, maybe calls at intermediate ports, and discharges at the final destination. The forwarder tracks one vessel, one ETA and one CE Mercante entry. When cargo transships, the container rides two different vessels, with two ETAs, two voyage numbers and two sets of data to verify.

The trend behind this is global. Carriers keep concentrating long-haul services on bigger vessels that call at fewer ports. A 14,000-TEU ship on the Asia-East Coast South America route now stops at three or four ports in the region, down from seven or eight that smaller ships used to cover. The ports left out of those rotations get feeder service instead, so cargo that once arrived in one leg now arrives in two.

That means twice the operational milestones to watch. The operator needs to know when the container was discharged at the hub port, when it was loaded onto the feeder, the updated ETA and which berth the feeder will use. Treat the process as a direct voyage and you only find out when the importer calls to ask why the cargo did not arrive on the expected date.

Tracking breaks between the mother vessel and the feeder

The mainline carrier publishes tracking events for the mother vessel fairly regularly. Discharge at the hub port usually shows up in the system within hours. After that, things get murky: the loading onto the feeder can take days to update, depending on the feeder operator and the agreement between the parties.

If the feeder belongs to the same group as the mainline carrier, integration tends to work. If an independent regional company operates it, tracking can just stop at the hub port. The container shows as “discharged” in Cartagena, Montevideo or Buenos Aires and only reappears when it arrives at the destination terminal in Brazil.

In that gap, the ops team is flying blind. The importer wants to know where the cargo is, the customs broker needs to plan clearance, and the forwarder’s operator has nothing to tell them. The only way through is direct contact with the overseas agent or the carrier at the hub port, asking for confirmation of loading onto the feeder, vessel name, voyage number and updated ETA for the Brazilian port.

Forwarders that handle this best record the transshipment as a separate event in their system, with dedicated fields for the second vessel and the second ETA. Those relying on email threads or side spreadsheets lose the information the moment the operator following the process goes on leave or switches desks.

Each leg generates a cargo manifest entry, and mismatches block customs clearance

For ocean freight imports with transshipment, Brazil’s Federal Revenue Service (Receita Federal) requires that cargo be registered under the CE Mercante entry for the manifest of the vessel that actually discharges at the Brazilian port. If a container arrives on a mother vessel at the hub and continues on a feeder to the final destination, the feeder’s manifest is the one that matters for customs clearance.

The forwarder in Brazil has to verify that the CE Mercante linked to the house bill of lading references the correct vessel and voyage. It is common for the CE Mercante to be registered initially with the mother vessel’s data, because feeder information was not yet available when the overseas agent sent the pre-alert. Once the feeder arrives and its manifest is transmitted, the mismatch between the house CE Mercante and the feeder manifest blocks cargo linkage in Siscomex (Brazil’s foreign trade system).

Fixing it requires rectification of the CE Mercante, and how long that takes determines the cost. Until the CE is corrected, customs clearance cannot move forward. While clearance sits idle, the cargo stays at the terminal and storage charges keep running. At Santos, bonded warehouse storage for a 20-foot container in the second period can exceed BRL 300 per day, depending on the terminal and the cargo’s CIF value. Three days of rectification turn into BRL 900 that nobody quoted.

The HS code (NCM in Brazil) is another sore spot. Since the NCM became mandatory in the CE Mercante, a mismatch between the CE and the DUIMP (Brazil’s single import declaration) triggers inconsistencies during cross-document checks. With transshipment, the risk of mismatch goes up because information passes through more hands: the exporter provides it, the overseas agent registers it, the carrier transmits it and the forwarder in Brazil checks it.

Free time starts from the vessel that discharges at the Brazilian port

Free time counting starts when the container is discharged at the destination terminal, per the contract between the importer and the carrier. With transshipment, the vessel that discharges at the Brazilian port is the feeder, and the date that matters is the feeder’s discharge date, not when the mother vessel reached the hub port.

The most common mistake at operations desks is using the mother vessel’s ETA as the reference for free time. If the mother vessel discharged in Montevideo on the 10th and the feeder discharged in Itajaí on the 17th, free time started on the 17th. Calculate from the 10th and you shift the count forward by seven days. You might rush procedures over urgency that does not exist. Or, worse, relax because you think there is still free time left.

Accurate free time tracking comes down to one piece of information: the date the terminal recorded the feeder container’s discharge. This date appears in the terminal system and in the carrier’s tracking, when it is current. When feeder tracking is slow to update, the operator has no real discharge date and works from guesses.

For the importer, the fallout shows up on the demurrage invoice. If the freight forwarder sold five free days and the container sat at the terminal for eight days counted from the feeder’s discharge, demurrage covers three days. If the forwarder got it wrong because they used the mother vessel’s date, they will have to explain to the importer why the bill does not match what was communicated. Demurrage charges are already one of the biggest friction points between forwarders and importers; a miscalculation caused by transshipment only makes it worse.

The pre-alert for transshipment cargo needs two vessels and two dates

The pre-alert the overseas agent sends to the forwarder in Brazil feeds everything downstream: the CE Mercante, the forwarder’s system, the customs broker’s schedule and the communication with the importer. On a direct voyage, the pre-alert carries one vessel, one voyage, one ETA and one destination port. With transshipment, it needs at least the mother vessel, the hub port, the expected feeder vessel, the feeder’s ETA at the destination port and any time constraints on the connection.

Most pre-alerts arrive incomplete. The overseas agent sends the mother vessel’s data because those are confirmed at the time of shipment, and promises to “update when the feeder is known.” The update may come days later, by email, in no standard format. The operator in Brazil then has to dig up the message, pull out the data and update the system by hand.

The re-keyed pre-alert is a familiar problem in any import operation. With transshipment, the re-keying doubles, because the second leg’s data arrives later and has to go into the same fields that were already filled with the first leg’s information.

Forwarders that standardize pre-alert requirements for transshipment (mandatory fields for the second vessel, a deadline for updates, a defined format) cut rework and the risk of CE Mercante entries with wrong data. Those that do not standardize are left depending on the overseas agent’s goodwill and the operator’s memory.

How Tier2 Cargo tracks each transshipment leg

Tier2 Cargo records transshipment as part of the process workflow, with fields for the mother vessel, the hub port, the feeder vessel and the respective ETAs. When the feeder’s ETA changes, the milestone updates and the free time calculation adjusts to the new estimated discharge date. The operator can see, inside the same process, which leg the container is on and how many days remain until discharge at the Brazilian port.

Importers who log into the Tier2 Portal see the same updated information without calling the operations desk. CE Mercante data is generated from the process with the correct vessel reference, which cuts the risk of rectification.

See how it works or get in touch.

Next step

If your operation receives transshipment cargo and the information flow between legs still depends on email and spreadsheets, start with the pre-alert: agree with your overseas agent which fields are mandatory for processes with a connection and the deadline for updating feeder data. That one change alone eliminates most CE Mercante rectifications and free time calculation errors that come up in transshipment imports.