The text Electronic bills of lading" over a blue background with 3 icons - lock = safer, planet = greener, stopwatch = faster

BIMCO publishes Electronic Bill of Lading Standard for Bulk Shipping

Published: 14 July 2022

Globally, less than 2% of world trade is carried on electronic bills of lading. This is partly due to lack of open standards and interoperability. To help increase adoption of digital trade documents in shipping, BIMCO has published an electronic bill of lading standard.

The BIMCO electronic bill of lading standard is a structured dataset consisting of 20 predefined data fields that are common to bulk shipping bills of lading. Find more information and documentation for the new standard.

BIMCO is a founding member of the FIT (Future International Trade) Alliance, a cross-industry coalition of organisations working together to produce open standards for electronic trade documents. BIMCO’s eBL Standard is aligned with the UN/CEFACT Multimodal Transport Reference Data Model as well as the standards produced by FIT Alliance members. The members of the FIT Alliance are: BIMCO, DCSA, FIATA, the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) and SWIFT.
Grant Hunter

CONTACT BIMCO

Grant Hunter

Director of Standards, Innovation and Research

London, United Kingdom