UPS extends electronic customs clearance to air freight

UPS is extending its free international electronic customs clearing service from its small package shipment services to its air freight services. The company said today its UPS Paperless Invoice service would save time, money and paper for international air freight shipments.

The service offers integrated order processing, shipment preparation and invoice data provision for shipments, transmitting the information to customs officials around the globe ahead of shipment.

The electronic service avoids the problems sometimes afflicting paper documentation, UPS said.

UPS Paperless Invoice is available through UPS Internet Shipping and UPS CampusShip software, and will be made available through UPS WorldShip in January.

“We are committed to making international shipping as simple as possible for our customers around the world,” said Scott Aubuchon, director of international air freight marketing for UPS. “Our expanded services enable more of our customers to streamline and expedite the customs process while cutting costs and saving time.”

Clearance

UPS has been providing electronic customs clearance for small package shippers since January 2008, and since then has provided the service for shipments to more than 90 destination countries and shipments from more than 70 origin countries.

Also today, UPS said it has now added 25 new origin countries to its UPS WorldShip shipping software, which helps customers to generate labels and prepare packages for shipping.

In total, the software can now be used to ship small packages and air freight to 63 countries.

New countries added to the software include in Latin America – Argentina, Chile and the Dominican Republic; in Africa – Egypt, Nigeria and South Africa; in the Middle East – Bahrain, Iraq, Israel, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE; and in Asia – Cambodia, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

A few European countries have also been added, including Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania and Slovakia.