Tracking on the Maersk portal

The Maersk portal accepts a container number, a B/L number or a booking number, taken straight from the URL, so the widget above opens the result directly.

What comes back is operational data: vessel and voyage, ports of loading and discharge, scheduled dates, and milestones per container from gate-in to empty return. It is not customs status — clearance and inspection do not appear here. Demurrage and detention detail shows only to an account authorised on the shipment.

An empty result usually means: the number is a forwarder house bill and the portal only knows the master; the prefix is not Maersk (SUDU is Hamburg Süd, its own portal); the B/L is not issued yet, so use the booking number; a typo; or the cargo has not been gated in, so no event exists.

Boxes are reused constantly, so a container-number search returns that box's latest voyage, which may not be yours. If the dates do not match, search by B/L.

Reading Maersk bill-of-lading & booking numbers

A container number follows ISO 6346: four letters (owner code plus the category letter U), six digits and a check digit — 11 characters. Maersk prefixes include MSKU, MRKU, MRSU, MAEU and PONU; SEAU and SELU are Sealand and SAFU is Safmarine, all on the same portal.

A Maersk B/L number is a numeric string, shorter, and without that shape. In EDI and third-party software it sometimes carries a SCAC prefix (MAEU, MRKU, SEAU, SEJJ) — the same letters as the box prefixes, so never judge a number by its first four characters.

A booking number is also numeric and looks much the same. Distinguish by source, not shape: the booking number lives on the booking confirmation, the B/L number on the bill. One bill can cover several containers; one booking can split across several bills.

Three things on the face of the bill decide release: whether the consignee box names a party or reads "to order", which decides whether an original must be surrendered; a place of delivery inland of the discharge port, which moves the empty-return location; and the form of issuance — original, sea waybill or telex-released — which decides what you submit for the delivery order.

Getting the electronic delivery order (e-D/O)

Step 1 — Establish who releases to you. Named on the Maersk bill, you ask Maersk Vietnam; holding a forwarder house bill, you ask that forwarder, because Maersk delivers only to the party named on its own bill.

Step 2 — Read the arrival notice Maersk sends to the notify party. Reconcile the consignee name and tax code across notice, bill, invoice and draft declaration; a mismatch has to be fixed before the release is issued.

Step 3 — Satisfy the release conditions: proof of your right to the cargo (the original bill, or telex release / sea waybill confirmed from origin, plus a letter of introduction and power of attorney if the person attending is not the consignee) and settlement of the destination charges. The document list varies by shipment and over time — take it from Maersk Vietnam or that shipment's arrival notice.

Step 4 — Receive the electronic delivery order, which Maersk issues in place of a paper release, passing the shipment data to the terminal system.

Step 5 — Declare the release on the terminal portal; at Cát Lái that is Saigon Newport's ePort. It matches what you enter against the carrier's data, and only a match lets you book a pick-up slot.

Step 6 — Pay terminal and lift-on/lift-off charges, post a container deposit if required, take the box, and return the empty where Maersk specifies: the wrong depot creates cost and keeps the detention clock running.

Step 7 — If you are stopped, find the real bottleneck first: telex release or original not done; charges unsettled; the release not declared on the terminal portal, or declared out of line with carrier data; or a customs, quarantine or terminal hold. The first three are documentation with the carrier; a hold has to be cleared where it was placed.

Where to find free time terms & how to request an extension

Free time is not a property of Maersk but a term in the rate agreement between the carrier and whoever contracted the freight; two shipments on the same vessel can differ. The question is not what Maersk gives, but what this shipment has and where that is written.

Where to look, in order of reliability: the booking confirmation and rate agreement, in the terms and remarks; the shipment detail on maersk.com, where a demurrage and detention view shows free time and the last free date per container to authorised parties; and the tariff Maersk publishes for that port, which applies when nothing was agreed separately. The bill of lading refers to the tariff rather than printing a figure.

Demurrage counts time inside the terminal after discharge; detention counts time outside it, from gate-out until the empty is returned where specified. Two independent clocks, two last free dates, two tariffs — most unplanned cost comes from watching only one.

Only the party holding the terms can ask for an extension. On CIF or CFR that is the seller or their forwarder; with an NVOCC in between, the house bill's free time can be shorter than what they got from Maersk. On FOB or EXW you contract the freight, so negotiate free time when you fix the rate. Ask the commercial team holding the account, not the documentation counter; in some markets Maersk also sells additional free time online. More important than the channel is the timing: check the last free date when the arrival notice lands.

What Maersk calls its surcharges

Maersk names its surcharges with its own codes, which differ from the shorthand used in the Vietnamese market. Knowing them lets you read the carrier invoice against the quotation you accepted.

The ones you will meet most: OHC and DHC are Terminal Handling Service at origin and destination, what the market lumps together as THC; ODF and DDF are the Documentation Fee at each end — Maersk maintains an ODF/DDF tariff scoped specifically to Vietnam to and from the world; EXP and IMP are Export Service and Import Service. Not every trade carries all of them — check your quotation, and Maersk publishes charge-revision notices by trade scope.

A note on naming: Maersk's Vietnam charge list has no line called a "D/O fee". The destination documentation work sits inside DDF — bill of lading issuance, document amendments, and transmitting information to the customs authority. Because market shorthand and invoice names do not line up, reconcile against the charge code printed on the carrier's own invoice rather than against the phrase people say.

Alongside these sit industry-wide surcharges not specific to Maersk: BAF and EBS for bunker, LSS for low-sulphur fuel, CIC for container imbalance, PSS for peak season, plus security, war risk, container cleaning and telex release. The abbreviations are shared across carriers; the scope is not.

Per line, ask whether it is inside the quoted rate or billed separately, at which end it falls, and whether it is a carrier charge or a terminal charge collected on the carrier's behalf.