A SCAC is four letters, and on an India to United States shipment those four letters decide whether your cargo is filed correctly or not filed at all. Most exporters never look at the code until a US customs filing is rejected, at which point it becomes urgent. It is worth understanding before that happens.
What a SCAC code is
SCAC stands for Standard Carrier Alpha Code. It is a unique four-letter identifier for a transportation company, issued and maintained by the National Motor Freight Traffic Association (NMFTA) in the United States. Despite the name, it is not limited to motor carriers: ocean carriers, NVOCCs, rail operators and freight forwarders all hold them.
Codes are assigned on application and renewed periodically — annually, as we understand it, though the exact renewal terms are NMFTA’s and you should confirm with them if you are applying. The relevant point for an exporter is that a SCAC belongs to a company, is registered, and cannot be invented. If you are filling in a field labelled SCAC and you are guessing, stop.
Ocean carrier codes assigned for this purpose conventionally end in U. That is a strong pattern across the liner trade — MAEU, MEDU, HLCU, ONEY is the visible exception — rather than an absolute rule, so treat it as a sanity check and not as proof.
Why it matters from India
Two situations bring the SCAC into an Indian exporter’s day.
US-bound cargo. Anything moving to the United States requires an advance manifest filing to US Customs and Border Protection, and a security filing under ISF (“10+2”) for the importer’s side. Those filings identify the carrier by SCAC and tie a bill of lading number to it. If the SCAC and the bill of lading number do not match what the carrier actually filed, the filing does not marry up. The result is a mismatch notice and, if it is not fixed, a hold at the discharge port. Similar advance filing regimes exist for Canada and elsewhere, but the identifier used is not always a SCAC — check the requirement for the destination rather than assuming.
House bills under an NVOCC. Where an NVOCC issues a house bill of lading, the NVOCC has its own SCAC and files under it, while the shipping line files the master bill under the line’s SCAC. Both filings exist and both must be correct. This is the most common source of confusion on Indian export documentation, because an exporter holding only a house bill sees only the NVOCC’s code and may quote it where the ocean carrier’s code is wanted, or the reverse.
Outside US-bound trade the SCAC has no legal force in Indian export procedure. It does not appear on a shipping bill and Indian customs does not ask for it. It is still useful as an unambiguous way of naming a carrier in an email or a rate sheet, where “MSC” and “Mediterranean Shipping Company” and “MSC Agency India” are the same thing to a human and three different things to a system.
SCAC codes for the major lines calling India
These are the codes we see most often on India trades. This is a list of common ones, not a complete list. Carriers hold multiple SCACs — separate codes for different services, regional entities or acquired businesses are normal — so the code on your document may legitimately differ from the one below. The authoritative source is NMFTA, and the practical source is your own bill of lading.
| Shipping line | SCAC |
|---|---|
| Maersk | MAEU |
| MSC (Mediterranean Shipping Company) | MEDU |
| CMA CGM | CMDU |
| Hapag-Lloyd | HLCU |
| ONE (Ocean Network Express) | ONEY |
| COSCO | COSU |
| Evergreen | EGLV |
| HMM | HDMU |
| Yang Ming | YMLU |
| ZIM | ZIMU |
| PIL (Pacific International Lines) | PABV |
| Wan Hai Lines | WHLC |
| OOCL | OOLU |
| Emirates Shipping Line | ESPU |
Not every line in this table serves every Indian port, and service patterns change. Which of them actually calls Mundra, Nhava Sheva, Pipavav or Hazira on a given trade is a scheduling question, not a coding one — see our notes on Indian ports and on the trade lanes we work.
A SCAC is not a container owner prefix
These two four-character codes look alike, sit next to each other on the same documents, and sometimes even match. They are issued by different bodies for different purposes.
| SCAC | Container owner prefix | |
|---|---|---|
| Issued by | NMFTA (United States) | BIC, Paris, under ISO 6346 |
| Identifies | The carrier or filing party | The owner of the physical container |
| Structure | Four letters | Three letters plus a category letter, normally U |
| Appears on | Bills of lading, US customs filings, EDI | The container door and every cargo document |
| Used for | Naming who is carrying the cargo | Naming which box the cargo is in |
The overlap is real. Maersk’s SCAC is MAEU and Maersk-owned containers carry the prefix MAEU. But a Maersk shipment can move in a leased box with a completely different prefix, and a leasing company’s box can travel under any carrier. The container prefix tells you nothing reliable about who is carrying the cargo, and the SCAC tells you nothing about the equipment.
The failure mode we see most is someone reading the container prefix off a photograph of the door and entering it as the carrier code. It looks right. It is not.
How to find the SCAC when you only have the bill of lading
- Read the first four characters of the bill of lading number. On many lines they are the SCAC. A number beginning MAEU, MEDU or HLCU is a strong signal. It is a convention, not a requirement, so confirm it rather than relying on it alone.
- Read the letterhead and the small print. The bill of lading names the carrier as a legal entity, usually with the SCAC printed near the document number or in the EDI reference block.
- Check whether you are holding a house bill. If the document is on a forwarder’s or NVOCC’s letterhead, the SCAC on it is the NVOCC’s. The ocean carrier’s SCAC sits on the master bill, which your forwarder holds.
- Ask for both codes at once. On any US-bound shipment moving under a house bill, ask your forwarder in a single email for the master bill number, the ocean carrier’s SCAC, the house bill number and the NVOCC’s SCAC. The filing needs to be consistent, and getting all four together avoids three rounds of correspondence.
- Verify against NMFTA if it matters. For a first shipment with an unfamiliar carrier or NVOCC, or where a filing has already been rejected, check the code at source rather than against a list on a website — including this one.
The wider point is the one that runs through most customs clearance problems. A rejected filing is rarely a rule that has been broken. It is one identifier that does not match another identifier, in a chain where a document, a filing and a manifest all have to say the same thing. Our page on ocean freight sets out where those chains usually break, and if a term here is unfamiliar the glossary covers the document set. To follow a shipment once the codes are right, use our tracking page.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need a SCAC code as an exporter in India?
No. A SCAC identifies the carrier or the NVOCC, not the shipper. You will need to know your carrier’s code for US-bound filings, but you do not hold one yourself unless you operate as a carrier or NVOCC.
Can one shipping line have more than one SCAC?
Yes, and the large lines generally do. Separate codes for different services, regional entities or acquired businesses are normal. That is why the code on your document should be taken from the document rather than from any published list.
Is the SCAC always the first four letters of the bill of lading number?
Often, but not always. It is a convention adopted by many lines because US filings tie the two together. Regional carriers and NVOCCs frequently use bill of lading formats with no SCAC in them.
What happens if the wrong SCAC is filed for a US shipment?
The advance filing will not match the carrier’s manifest. Expect a mismatch notice and a request to amend. If it is not corrected before arrival the container can be held at the discharge port, with demurrage running while it is sorted out. Amendment is straightforward; the cost is the delay.