Part 1 of this series covered IEC and GST/LUT — the registrations that make you legally able to export. This part covers the two documents that determine whether a specific shipment clears customs and gets paid for without a dispute: the commercial invoice and the packing list. They sound like paperwork formalities. In practice, mismatches between them are one of the most common reasons a shipment gets held at port or a letter of credit gets flagged for discrepancy, and both are entirely within your control to get right the first time.
The commercial invoice: precision over description, not marketing copy
A commercial invoice needs to carry, at minimum: exporter and importer details exactly as registered, invoice number and date, your IEC and GSTIN, the HS code for each line item, a precise description of goods, quantity, unit rate, total value with currency, Incoterms (FOB, CIF, and so on), payment terms, and your bank details for remittance. If the shipment moves under LUT without IGST payment, the invoice needs the specific declaration to that effect — “Supply meant for export under LUT without payment of integrated tax” is the standard wording, and leaving it off is a documentation gap that causes problems later, not a minor omission.
If the order is backed by a letter of credit, the invoice has to match the LC’s wording for goods description exactly — not approximately, not “close enough to be understood.” Banks examining LC documents check for strict conformity, and a goods description that says “100% cotton bath towels” on your invoice when the LC specifies “cotton terry bath towels, 500 GSM” is a discrepancy that can delay payment even though any reasonable person would understand it’s the same product.
The packing list: a different document, doing a different job
The packing list is not a restatement of the invoice — it answers a different question. The invoice says what was sold and for how much. The packing list says how it’s physically packed: number of cartons or bales, net and gross weight per carton, dimensions, and the marks and numbers printed on each carton so customs and the buyer’s receiving team can match physical cartons to paperwork without opening every one. For a container of mixed SKUs — say, several bed linen sizes and a towel range in one shipment — the packing list needs to specify which cartons contain which items, not just a total count.
Where the two documents have to agree, and usually don’t
Customs authorities, and often the buyer’s bank on an LC transaction, cross-check quantities and weights between the invoice, packing list, and shipping bill — a three-way match. The most common failure isn’t a dramatic error; it’s small inconsistencies that accumulate: total carton count on the packing list not matching the shipping bill, a rounding difference between declared net weight and the sum of individual carton weights, or a quantity on the invoice that doesn’t tie back to cartons-times-units-per-carton on the packing list. None of these are hard to avoid — they just require generating both documents from the same source data rather than typing them up separately and hoping the numbers land the same.
Next in this series
Part 3 covers the Certificate of Origin and how to actually claim FTA or CEPA benefits at the buyer’s end — a document that depends on getting the invoice and packing list right first, since origin certification gets checked against the same shipment details.