Commercial Invoice Guide

A commercial invoice is a required document for international shipments. It provides a detailed description and declared value of the goods being shipped. Customs agencies use this document to assess duties and taxes and to determine whether the goods can legally enter the destination country.

• A valid Shipment must be created.
• CustomsInfo must be included in the shipment.

When a Shipment is created with valid customs information, EasyPost automatically generates a commercial invoice and returns it in the Form object. The commercial invoice is provided in PDF format and can be accessed via the form_url field.

If the carrier does not support commercial invoice generation or a generic invoice is preferred, include the following option in the shipment request:

"commercial_invoice_format": "PNG"

This option overrides the carrier-provided document and generates a generic commercial invoice.

The Form object in the shipment response includes the following fields related to the commercial invoice:

• object (string): Always returns Form.
• id (string): Unique ID of the form. Recommended to record for tracking purposes.
• created_at (timestamp): Timestamp indicating when the form was created.
• updated_at (timestamp): Timestamp for the last update to the form, if applicable.
• mode (string): Indicates whether the form is from the test or production environment.
• form_type (string): Type of form returned. Should return commercial_invoice if successful.
• form_url (string): URL linking to the PDF version of the commercial invoice.
• submitted_electronically (boolean): Indicates whether the form was submitted electronically. Electronic submission depends on the carrier and destination country.

Below is a sample Shipment object that includes a Form object containing a commercial invoice:

{
  "object": "Shipment",
  "id": "shp_j9i8h7g6f5e4d3c2b1a",
  "forms": [
    {
      "object": "Form",
      "id": "form_a1b2c3d4e5f6g7h8i9j",
      "created_at": "2017-02-28T00:54:18Z",
      "updated_at": "2017-02-28T00:54:18Z",
      "mode": "production",
      "form_type": "commercial_invoice",
      "form_url": "https://easypost-files.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/files/form/filename.pdf",
      "submitted_electronically": true
    }
  ]
}

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