CPT Incoterm: Carriage Paid To (Incoterms 2020)

CPT at a glance

Under CPT the seller contracts and pays for carriage to the named destination, but delivers — and transfers risk — when the goods are handed to the first carrier at origin. It is the any-mode sibling of CFR, with no insurance obligation for either party.

Full term

CPT — Carriage Paid To

Transport mode

Any transport mode

Delivery point

Handover to the first carrier at origin

Risk transfers

When the goods are handed to the first carrier — often a truck at the seller's city, long before the main leg

Export clearance

Seller

Import clearance

Buyer

What CPT means in practice

CPT extends the C-rule logic to every transport mode: air, road, rail, courier networks and multimodal container moves. The seller organises and pays the freight through to the named destination — an airport, terminal or even the buyer's city — while risk leaves the seller much earlier, at the handover to the first carrier in the chain.

That first carrier is the detail most people miss. If the journey is truck → airport → flight → delivery, risk passes when the trucking company collects the goods, not when the aircraft takes off. Everything after that first pickup happens at the buyer's risk, on transport the seller chose and paid for.

Because neither party is obliged to insure, CPT leaves the same exposure gap as CFR: a buyer who assumes "freight paid = seller's problem" is running the whole journey uninsured. Buyers who want the seller to bundle all-risks insurance with the carriage should use CIP instead — same structure, insurance included at the highest default standard.

Buyer vs seller responsibilities

Name the destination point precisely. "CPT Dubai" leaves open whether carriage ends at the airport, a bonded terminal or the buyer's district — each with different cost boundaries.

Where costs transfer — and where risk transfers

Cost transfer

The seller pays export-side costs and the through-freight to the named destination point. The buyer pays whatever the carriage contract excludes at destination — often unloading and terminal fees — plus import clearance, duties and any onward leg beyond the named place.

Two boundaries need explicit wording: the exact destination point (which defines what freight the seller must buy), and unloading at that point (which follows the carriage contract's small print unless the sales contract overrides it).

Risk transfer

Risk transfers at the handover to the first carrier at origin. On a multimodal container move that is typically the moment the export trucker or the origin terminal takes the goods in charge — days before the ocean or air leg begins.

The freight-paid destination and the risk-transfer origin are hundreds or thousands of kilometres apart; this rule is the textbook case for why cost transfer and risk transfer must be read as two separate events.

When CPT works well

• Air freight where the seller's forwarder rates are competitive and the buyer accepts risk from origin pickup.
• Road and rail deliveries to inland destinations — CPT names an inland point in a way sea rules cannot.
• Containerised multimodal moves where the seller sells a freight-inclusive price but the buyer runs its own cargo insurance programme.
• Courier and consolidated e-commerce flows where the seller ships on its parcel or forwarding contracts to the buyer's market.

When to think twice about CPT

• Buyers who expect the seller to bear risk until arrival — that needs DAP or DPU, not a C-rule.
• Buyers without their own cargo insurance: CIP bundles all-risks cover at the seller's expense for the same journey structure.
• Buyers with strong freight contracts of their own — FCA lets them use those rates instead of paying the seller's freight margin.
• Contracts that leave the destination point vague — the seller's freight obligation is only as precise as the named place.

CPT in the real world

Electronics by air, Frankfurt → Dubai — damaged before the airport

A Dubai distributor orders test instruments from a German manufacturer at "CPT Dubai Airport (Incoterms 2020)". The manufacturer books its house forwarder: truck from Frankfurt to the airport, then air freight to Dubai. The trucking leg is where things go wrong — a loading-bay collision at a consolidation depot damages two crates.

Risk had already passed to the distributor when the forwarder's truck collected the crates in Frankfurt. The seller's carriage payment obligation is intact (freight was paid through to Dubai), but the damage is the buyer's loss — before the cargo ever reached an aircraft.

The distributor's open cargo policy attaches at first-carrier pickup for C-term purchases, so the claim is routine. Its procurement team still tightened one thing: naming "Dubai Airport, free carrier's terminal" precisely, after a separate dispute over who paid the destination terminal fee.

Common mistakes with CPT

TradeIntel insight

CPT is the rule we see most often in air-freight quotes, and the one where insurance mistakes surface fastest — air cargo moves quickly, so a first-leg trucking claim can appear before anyone has even reviewed the terms. A practical discipline: whenever a supplier quotes CPT, record two data points in the purchase order — the precise named destination point, and the date-time your insurance attaches (first-carrier pickup). If you cannot fill in the second, you have found your exposure.

Is CPT right for your shipment?

Answer eight questions about your shipment and capability profile — the TradeIntel Incoterms Assessment explains which rules fit and why.

Check with the Incoterms Assessment

Frequently asked questions

Related Incoterms guidance

• Incoterms hub: all 11 rules
• CIF vs CIP
• FCA vs FOB
• Incoterms costs and risks: who pays, who bears, and why they differ
• What are Incoterms? A practical guide to the 2020 rules
• Incoterms Assessment