Container glossary
What is an NVOCC?
An NVOCC (non-vessel-operating common carrier) is a company that sells ocean transport and issues its own bills of lading without operating any ships. It buys space from the shipping lines and resells it, acting as the carrier toward its customer and as the shipper toward the line.
How an NVOCC buys and resells space
An NVOCC commits to a volume of containers with one or more lines and sells that space on in smaller lots. Much of its business is consolidation: it gathers shipments too small to fill a box, loads them together into one container and ships that container as its own cargo. The line issues one master bill of lading to the NVOCC; the NVOCC issues a house B/L to each of its customers.
The term comes from United States shipping law, where an NVOCC is regulated by the Federal Maritime Commission. Elsewhere the same business is usually just called a forwarder or a consolidator, but the arrangement is identical: toward you the NVOCC is the carrier, and the ship belongs to somebody else.
Where the NVOCC appears in your paperwork
Its name is on the letterhead of your bill of lading, on the freight invoice and on the arrival notice sent by its agent at destination. The name of the shipping line may appear only in a box marked “vessel” or “ocean carrier”, or not at all.
That decides where you track. The NVOCC’s own portal takes the house bill number and shows what the NVOCC knows. The line’s tracker takes the container number and shows the box’s moves, because a line reports events for every container it carries, whoever sold the freight. If you have the container number but not the line, the container number checker names the owner of the prefix.
Looking for an NVOCC’s container prefix
An NVOCC normally owns no containers; its cargo travels in the line’s boxes or in leased ones. So it has no owner prefix, and searching for one leads to invented answers. Shipco Transport is the standing example: third-party sites publish “SHPT” as its prefix, and the BIC register returned no such entry when we looked it up.
The other half of the mistake is expecting the shipping line to deal with you. It will not quote your shipment, amend your document or release your cargo, because its customer is the NVOCC. Questions about the box’s position go to the line’s tracker; everything about your contract goes to the NVOCC.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between an NVOCC and a freight forwarder?
An NVOCC is a carrier and a freight forwarder, strictly speaking, is an agent. The NVOCC issues its own bill of lading and answers to you for the carriage; a forwarder acting purely as agent arranges transport in your name with a carrier that issues the bill. In practice many companies do both, and the document you are handed tells you which role they took.
Does an NVOCC own containers or ships?
No ships, by definition, and usually no containers either. It moves cargo in containers supplied by the shipping line, which is why the prefix on the box names a line or a leasing company and never the NVOCC.
How do I track an NVOCC shipment?
Track the contract with the NVOCC and the box with the line. The house bill of lading number works only in the NVOCC’s system; the container number works on the tracking page of the line whose vessel carries it.