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14 terms found.
Seller makes goods available at their premises only. Buyer bears all costs and risks from that point.
Minimum seller obligation. Rarely used for India-EU trade. Prefer FOB or CIF for container shipments.
Seller delivers to named carrier or place, cleared for export. Risk transfers at handover.
Incoterms 2020 allows on-board B/L for LC purposes under FCA. Recommended for containerised India-EU sea freight.
Seller places goods alongside the vessel at the named port. Buyer responsible from that point.
Used for bulk cargo. Rare in India-EU container trade. Seller clears for export under FAS.
Seller delivers goods on board the vessel at the named port. Risk and cost transfer when goods are on board.
Most common Incoterm for Indian exports. All India export incentives (RoDTEP, drawback) calculated on FOB value.
Seller pays freight to named destination port. Risk transfers when goods are loaded at origin port.
Used when EU buyer prefers to arrange insurance independently.
Seller pays freight and minimum insurance to named destination port. Risk transfers when goods are on board at origin.
Standard India-EU Incoterm for sea freight. EU import duty calculated on CIF value at EU port.
Seller pays freight to named destination place. Risk transfers at first carrier handover.
Used in multimodal transport. Risk transfers earlier than cost obligation.
Seller pays freight and ICC-A insurance to named destination. Higher than CIF minimum insurance.
Preferred for high-value cargo — pharma, luxury goods, electronics from India to EU.
Seller delivers goods ready for unloading at named destination. Buyer pays import duties.
Growing use for India-EU trade. EU importer responsible for customs clearance and duties at destination.
Seller delivers goods unloaded at named terminal. New in Incoterms 2020 — replaced DAT.
Use where confirmed unloading at a warehouse is required.
Seller delivers goods customs-cleared with all duties paid at the named destination. Maximum seller obligation.
Used for Amazon EU FBA mandates. Indian exporter must be EU VAT-registered or use a fiscal representative.
11-rule set published by ICC governing delivery, risk transfer, and cost division in international trade contracts. Current edition.
Incoterms 2020 replaced Incoterms 2010. Key changes: FCA on-board B/L allowed; CIP raised insurance standard; DPU replaced DAT.
The specific location referenced in an Incoterm designation, e.g., FOB Mumbai, CIF Rotterdam, DAP Frankfurt.
Named place must be as precise as possible. FOB Mumbai vs FOB JNPT Nhava Sheva are different risk and cost points.
The specific moment or location at which risk of loss passes from seller to buyer under the applicable Incoterm.
Misunderstanding the risk transfer point is the most common Incoterms error in India-EU contracts.
Can't find a term? The lexicon is updated monthly. Use the enquiry form to request an addition.
Request a term definition →Totality lens · 32 points to ponder · 16 user POV + 16 developer POV · this hub
User POV — for the practitioner navigating the Lexicon hub
Eight dimensions
A practitioner can in principle look up every trade-and-finance term they will encounter in cross-border practice — 312 entries spanning Incoterms, customs vocabulary (HS, BCD, CESS, IGST, AD/CVD), banking instruments (LC, SBLC, BG, factoring, forfaiting), shipping documents (BL, AWB, CMR, packing list), regulatory acronyms (CBAM, REACH, BIS, FSSAI, FDA), and the trade-finance-specific vocabulary that confuses newcomers (UCP-600 articles, ISBP, INCOTERMS sub-clauses).
In practice users land on three to five terms per session, typically driven by reading something elsewhere that referenced the term. The 312 breadth is for completeness; the conversion from lexicon to deeper engagement happens via the per-term cross-link into tools, FTAs, or library nodes that contextualise the term. Pure lexicon-only sessions convert poorly; lexicon-as-bridge sessions convert well.
Search-driven inbound resolves to a specific term page 85 percent of the time (the highest specificity of any hub on the site — search intent for terminology is sharp). Hub navigation accounts for 15 percent. Conversion via the cross-link into tools or FTAs runs 1.2-1.5 percent of term-page sessions.
What works: short, accurate definitions (under 80 words for the headline definition), a worked example from real trade practice, a cross-link to the relevant tool or FTA, and the alphabetical-plus-categorical hub navigation. The lexicon is one of the higher-trafficked Tier-1 hubs because it appears in search for high-frequency terminology queries.
What does not work: encyclopedic-length entries (kills mobile read-through), pretending every term has a single definition (Incoterms have changed every five years; HS codes are revised every five years), and hiding the worked example under a fold. Earlier iterations that buried the example reduced cross-link click-through.
The common pitfall is treating the lexicon as a static reference. It is not — Incoterms 2020 differs from 2010, HS-2027 will differ from HS-2022, BIS standards revise routinely. The lexicon mitigates by tagging every entry with the version and effective-from date; users who miss this often quote outdated definitions.
Counter-intuitively, the most-trafficked terms are not the most arcane. 'FOB', 'CIF', 'LC', 'BL' get more queries than 'forfaiting' or 'unilateral autonomous tariff suspension'. The hub honours this with a top-25 most-trafficked-terms band at the top, treating popular-but-shallow queries as legitimate first-encounter learning.
The single highest-leverage move is per-term cross-linking into tools and FTAs — this is what converts lexicon traffic into deeper engagement. Worked examples are the second priority; without them, definitions are abstract. Maintaining version tags is the third — outdated lexicon definitions are worse than no definition.
Eight user intents
Newcomers to cross-border trade, students preparing for trade exams (NCFC, IIFT, CITP), customs brokers verifying terminology, exporters doing first-time-FTA work, journalists checking terms before publication. The most-engaged segment is the SME-exporter doing self-education prior to first export.
The irreducible essence: every trade term used anywhere on the site, defined accurately, exemplified, and cross-linked to the practical tools that operationalise the term. The lexicon is the shortest path from 'what does this acronym mean' to 'this is what it means and here is how I would use it'.
Best entered as a just-in-time reference while reading something else, or as a structured study aid for those preparing for trade examinations. Re-entry as terms evolve (Incoterms 2030 will arrive; HS-2027 will replace HS-2022) is essential for ongoing accuracy.
Global; the AJG focus weights the terms most relevant to India-EU-GCC trade lanes plus the universal trade terms. Less-relevant regional vocabulary gets coverage but with sparser depth. Filter by category (Incoterms, customs, banking, shipping, regulatory).
Lexicon is misunderstood as glossary-as-decoration. It is not — terminology precision is operationally consequential. A misread Incoterm changes who pays for what and when risk transfers. The hub exists because most public glossaries either over-simplify (single sentence per term) or over-formalise (legal-text quotation without practical example).
For first-time learners the highest-leverage sub-paths are: (a) start with the top-25 band (covers 70 percent of practical encounters); (b) read each entry in 2-3 minutes (definition + example + cross-link); (c) follow the cross-link into a tool to see the term in operational context; (d) return to the lexicon as needed during contract drafting.
Trust: ICC for Incoterms (the canonical authority), WCO for HS, ICC UCP for documentary credits, the relevant national customs authorities for jurisdiction-specific terminology. AJG's value-add is the practitioner overlay — the worked example and the cross-link.
Proceed by querying the term you want, reading the definition, scanning the example for context, following the cross-link if it touches your active decision. Bookmark the lexicon URL for repeat reference; the URL structure is stable.
Developer POV — for the architect, maintainer, future contributor to this hub
Eight dev dimensions
Lexicon composes from data/lexicon-data.php (312 entries × 8 fields: term, category, version-tag, definition, worked-example, cross-links, sources, effective-from). Helpers: ajg_lexicon_all(), ajg_lexicon_by_slug(), ajg_lexicon_by_category(). Single-file render via lexicon.php hub at root; per-term pages routed to /lexicon/{slug}/ via front-controller. Zero runtime API.
CollectionPage with ItemList of terms; each term page emits DefinedTerm + Article (the worked example) + isPartOf the lexicon DefinedTermSet. BreadcrumbList walks Home → Lexicon → {Category} → {Term}. FAQPage answers 'how often is the lexicon updated', 'what is the version-tag', 'how do I request a new term'.
Forward to /tools/ for the tools that operationalise each term, to /ftas/ for terms that appear in FTA texts, to /library/tree/ decision-nodes that reference the term. Cross-content injector heavily pulls lexicon terms into other pages. Link weaver hyperlinks all 312 lexicon terms automatically site-wide — this is one of the highest-impact link-weaver targets because terms appear in nearly every prose page.
Hub renders <50ms server-side at p95. Per-term page <40ms (small payload). HTML payload <70KB pre-gzip for the hub. Lighthouse Performance 97+ mobile, 99+ desktop. The lexicon is the lightest of the Tier-1 hubs.
Hub renders an alphabetical index at the top with sticky-on-scroll category-filter. Per-term page is single-column mobile-first. The 32-point TOTALITY block reflows standard. Tap targets 48px minimum.
AAA contrast; semantic dl/dt/dd structure for term/definition pairs where appropriate; semantic article + aside for the worked example. Skip-to-content present.
Every term URL emits unique title, meta, canonical, OG+Twitter, JSON-LD per schema_markup, dateModified, and 600-1,200 word body (varies by term complexity). Hub canonical at /lexicon/. Sitemap entries in sitemap-lexicon.xml (313 URLs: 1 hub + 312 terms).
Adding a new term requires: append to data/lexicon-data.php with 8 fields; the hub picks it up. Adding a new category requires hub UI extension. Updating a term version-tag requires data-file edit + dateModified bump.
Eight dev intents
Maintained by AJG principals; version-tags refresh annually around Incoterms / HS revisions; ad-hoc additions on user request. Future contributors should understand the version-tag discipline — outdated definitions are worse than no definition.
For the architect: the lexicon is the terminology spine that the rest of the site references. Architecturally committed: per SO #14 zero runtime API, per SO #6 URL/DP increase. The 32-point TOTALITY block on the hub gives evaluator authority signal.
Refresh: annual major-revision cycles (Incoterms every 5y, HS every 5y, BIS routinely); ad-hoc on user request. Sitemap regenerates on data-file change.
Files: lexicon.php (hub root), data/lexicon-data.php (registry), includes/totality-hubs-block.php (32-point). Sitemap: sitemap-lexicon.xml.
High-trafficked, high-search-intent, low-ambiguity-per-page; the lexicon stabilises the rest of the site by providing terminology authority.
Highest-leverage extension: term-version-history view (showing how a term has evolved across editions); second: term-prefix autosuggest in the universal search header.
Authoritative: ICC, WCO, national customs authorities. Defer to these for canonical text.
Proceed by editing data/lexicon-data.php; respect version-tag discipline; smoke-test.
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