• Bill of Lading (B/L) – A document issued by a carrier, or its agent, to the shipper as a contract of carriage of goods.
  • Breakbulk – the process of adding several small shipments into a bigger one
  • Bulk cargo – Bulk cargo is commodity cargo that is transported unpackaged in large quantities
  • Bulk Carrier – ships designed to carry bulk cargo
  • Bunker Adjustment Factor (BAF) – a floating part of sea freight charges which represents additions due to oil prices
  • Cabotage - carriage of cargo between two points within a country by a vessel registered in another country
  • Currency Adjustment Factor (CAF) - a floating part of sea freight charges which represents additions due to currency values
  • Cargo – the goods loaded on a ship
  • Cargo Handling – the actions of loading and unloading of cargo into / from ships.
  • Cargo Manifest – a shipping document used by customs personnel reviewing a particular transport vehicle's intended trip that summarizes all bills of lading that have been issued by the carrier or its representative for that particular shipment
  • Carriers – vessel owners or vessel operators that offer carriage on their vessels
  • Conference – carrier's asociation that operates same rutes and establish same rates and fees for carriage
  • Consignee – A party (usually a buyer) named by the consignor (usually a seller) in transportation documents as the party to whose order a consignment will be delivered at the port of destination.
  • Container – Standardized re-sealable transportation box for unitized freight handling with standardized equipment.
  • Container Manifest – Document accompanying a shipping container and listing its contents
  •  Container terminal – A container terminal is a facility where cargo containers are transshipped between different transport vehicles, for onward transportation.
  • Dangerous Cargo – Dangerous goods or hazardous goods are solids, liquids, or gases that can harm people, other living organisms, property, or the environment.
  • Deadweight tonnage – Deadweight tonnage or tons deadweight (TDW) is a measure of how much mass a ship is carrying or can safely carry.
  • Demurrage ( demmurage ) – . Detention of a ship, freight car, or other cargo conveyance during loading or unloading beyond the scheduled time of departure. /  Compensation paid for such detention.
  • Dry Cargo – solid dry goods, others than liquids
  • Feeder Service – Transportation operations in which cargoes are shipped by water in smaller vessels to/from a load-center port for loading to or unloading from larger ocean-going vessels
  • Feeder Vessel –Feeder vessels or feeder ships are ships of various sizes, but mostly understood to be seagoing vessels with an average capacity of carrying 300 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) to 1000 TEU.
  • Hague Rules – International 1922 convention at The Hague (Netherlands) that established standard basic obligations and responsibilities of the shipper and ocean-carrier for goods covered under a bill of lading.
  • Less than Container Load (LCL) – a shipment that will not fill a container and will be consolidated with other shipments
  • Liner – a vessel which operates a regular scheduled service on a fixed route between designated ports and carries many consignments of different commodities.
  • Long Tons (L/T) – known also as imperial ton or weight ton, is the name for the unit called the "ton" in the avoirdupois or Imperial system of measurements standardised in the thirteenth century that is used in the United Kingdom and several other Commonwealth countries alongside the French metrication invented in 1799. One long ton is equal to 2,240 pounds (1,016 kg)
  • Metric Tons (M/T) – a unit of 1000 kilograms, equivalent to 2204.62 avoirdupois pounds
  • Non-vessel-operating Common Carrier (NVOCC) – A shipment consolidator or freight forwarder who does not own any vessel, but functions as a carrier by issuing its own bills of lading or air waybills and assuming responsibility for the shipments
  • Stowage – Placement (lading) of cargo in an aircraft or ship in a manner that provides optimum safety for the vessel and the cargo, gives maximum space usage, and allows easy access to cargo at the point of offloading..
  • Twenty Foot Equivalent Unit (T.E.U.) – Standard unit for describing a ship's cargo carrying capacity, or a shipping terminal's cargo handling capacity.
  • War Risk – probability of loss or damage due to acts of war, including invasion, insurrection, rebellion and hijacking