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Incoterms & Delivery Terms

FCA

Also known as: Free Carrier

Free Carrier is a flexible, all-modes term under which the seller delivers the goods, cleared for export, to a carrier or another party nominated by the buyer at a named place — which may be the seller's premises or a forwarder's terminal. Risk passes at that hand-over point. FCA is the modern, container-era answer to FOB and EXW: it works for air, road, rail, and containerized ocean shipments, and it correctly reflects how most cargo actually moves today, since goods are typically handed to a carrier at an inland depot or port terminal rather than lifted onto a vessel by the seller.

The JFS takeLicensed customs broker · Filer 82G

The term most container shipments should be using and few are. FCA puts the hand-over where it actually happens — the seller's dock, or a forwarder's terminal — and works for air, road, rail and sea alike. If your contract says FOB and your goods are in a box, this is the term you meant.

Where it matters for compliance

  • Delivery, and therefore risk, is at the named place. Naming the place precisely is what makes the term work.

Related terms

EXWEx Works represents the minimum obligation for a seller: the goods are simply made available for collection at the seller's own premises — a factory, warehouse, or plant — and from that moment nearly every cost and risk shifts to the buyer.FOBFree On Board is a maritime-only term under which the seller delivers the goods on board the vessel nominated by the buyer at the named port of shipment and clears them for export.CPTCarriage Paid To is the multimodal counterpart of CFR: the seller contracts and pays for carriage to the named destination, but risk passes to the buyer much earlier, at the point where the goods are handed to the first carrier.

Reviewed by a licensed customs broker. Definitions are general information, not legal or customs advice for a particular shipment. Duty rates, tariff programs and agency requirements change frequently.