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A commercial invoice is a document that is an official declaration of goods being imported into a country. In ecommerce, a commercial invoice is typically created by the shipper. The Zonos Customs API can provide all the information needed to create a commercial invoice for customs to clear a package reliably and consistently.

Customs documentation is required for all international shipments, but the data quality is typically low due to challenges with system integrations, user error, and complexity. When a broker or customs is supplied with poor documentation, there can be delays in delivery and the potential of additional expenses that need to be paid due to customs recalculation.

The Customs API is intended to be used on orders where Zonos calculated a landed cost and classified the goods. Once a Zonos order is complete, you can call the Customs API and pass rich customs data to your shipping system, brokers, logistics providers, or customs.

How to use the Customs API 

The Customs API can be used for the following use cases:

1. Match orders and enhance customs documentation

   1. Typically used by a logistics provider or broker to get additional customs details related to an existing Zonos order.

2. Create customs documentation

   1. Create documentation for a shipment.

3. Retrieve customs documentation

   1. Look up the Zonos order by Zonos order Id or account order Id.

Commercial invoice 

A commercial invoice contains two levels of information:

1. Shipment level information contains information at the package level, such as sold to, ship to, tracking number, order number, and more.
2. Item level information contains the descriptions of goods, harmonized code, value, qty, weight, and more.

Here is an example of some of the variables in the API and how they combine to create a complete commercial invoice.