Tools / Shipping bill extractor

Free tool

Read every field out of a shipping bill PDF.

Every field, from the number and the port code to each item line, checked against the arithmetic the bill performs on itself. Free, and the file is kept so the reader keeps getting better.

Drag & drop your PDF hereThe original digital copy, not a scan or a phone photo of a printout.Browse filesPDF only · up to 5 MB

Free, no sign-up

No account, no email box, no card.

Stored

Kept so the extractor keeps getting better.

10 of 10 free reads left today

Resets at midnight IST.

What comes back

The result, as an outline. Every cell says what would sit in it; the values appear when you drop a file.

The fields an eBRC filing asks for

Document identity

Shipping bill numberSeven digits, as printed on the bill

Shipping bill dateDay, month and year

Port codeSix-character customs location code

Invoice numberThe first invoice on the bill

Value

CurrencyThree-letter currency code

FOB valueIn the bill's currency

Deductions

FreightIn the bill's currency

InsuranceIn the bill's currency

DiscountIn the bill's currency

CommissionIn the bill's currency

Other deductionsIn the bill's currency

The bill, checked against itself

What was checked	The document says	Worked out from the rest
Invoice count	Invoices the header declares	Invoices actually listed
Item count	Items the header declares	Items actually listed
FOB value	FOB value on the bill	Sum of the item FOB values
Each item	Each item's value	Its quantity times its rate
Each invoice	Each invoice's total	The value on the invoice itself

Everything else the bill carries

HeaderShipping bill number and date, port code, IEC, GSTIN, the declared counts, packages and gross weight
ExporterExporter name, address and type
Consignee and destinationConsignee, destination country and port of discharge
BankingAD code, IFSC and the bank accounts for foreign exchange and drawback
Value summaryFOB value, freight, insurance, discount, commission and other deductions
InvoicesInvoice number and date, buyer, currency, exchange rate, value and line items
ItemsItem description, HS code, quantity, unit, rate and value
Containers and sealsContainer numbers, seals and seal types
Duty and schemesDrawback claim, IGST value and amount, cess, and scheme entitlements
Manifest and processManifest, challans and process details

The file is stored

It is kept so the extractor can be improved against the real documents people upload, which is how the parsers get better at the layouts customs actually produces. There is still no account, no email box and no card.

No account, and nothing to sign

There is no sign-up wall, no email box, and no cookie set for this. Ten bills per internet connection a day, resetting at midnight IST, which is the ceiling that keeps the tool free for everyone. An office sharing one connection shares the ten.

The same reader the product uses

This is not a demonstration version. It is the reader behind the eBRC exporter app and the eBRC API, answering here with nothing held back.

What the shipping bill extractor does

The shipping bill extractor reads the shipping bill PDF that ICEGATE generates and returns every field on it, from the shipping bill number, date and port code to each invoice and each item line, as a CSV or as JSON, free and with no sign-up. It is shipping bill data extraction without the retyping: drop the PDF, the fields come back.

Open the CSV in Excel. The download is a comma-separated file, and Excel and Google Sheets open it directly. The filing fields come as one CSV and the item lines as another.

What a shipping bill is, and why its fields matter later

A shipping bill is the export declaration filed with Indian customs before goods leave the country. Customs generates it on ICEGATE, and the document that comes back is the reference every later step points at: the bank quotes it when the export is logged in EDPMS, the incentive claim quotes it, and the eBRC quotes it when the payment for that consignment is finally realised.

That is why reading it correctly is worth a page of its own. A shipping bill number typed with a digit wrong, or a FOB value read off the wrong column, does not fail loudly. It fails months later, in a claim that does not reconcile or a certificate that will not map to the remittance it belongs to.

The fields this tool reads, and what each one means

These eleven are the ones a realisation filing asks for, which is why they come out first. Everything else the bill carries is below them, block by block, exactly as the document prints it.

Shipping bill numberSeven digits, as printed on the bill

The number customs assigned when the bill was filed. It identifies the export everywhere afterwards, including on the eBRC.

Shipping bill dateDay, month and year

The date the bill was filed, in the day, month and year form a date field expects. The realisation clock runs from here.

Port codeSix-character customs location code

The customs location the bill was filed at, as the six-character code every later filing quotes.

Invoice numberThe first invoice on the bill

The first invoice on the bill. A bill covering several invoices lists them all in the invoice table below.

CurrencyThree-letter currency code

The currency the invoice was raised in, which is the currency the payment will arrive in.

FOB valueIn the bill's currency

The free on board value of the consignment. This is the figure a realisation is measured against.

FreightIn the bill's currency

Freight deducted from the realised value.

InsuranceIn the bill's currency

Insurance deducted from the realised value.

DiscountIn the bill's currency

Discount deducted from the realised value.

CommissionIn the bill's currency

Agency commission deducted from the realised value.

Other deductionsIn the bill's currency

Everything else the bill deducts before the realisable value.

The four parts of a shipping bill

An ICEGATE shipping bill is printed in four parts, and knowing which part carries what is most of the skill in reading one. The shipping bill format guide goes through every field on each part and where it is used again; the short version is below.

Part I, the summary

The first page, and the one most questions are answered from. It opens with a header carrying the shipping bill number and date, the port code, the IEC and its branch, the GSTIN, and the counts of invoices, items and containers the rest of the document should contain. Under it sit the lettered blocks: status and routing, the exporter and consignee declaration with the AD code and bank account, the value summary, the export promotion amounts, manifest details, the invoice summary, the equipment table, challans, the annexure and the process log with the LEO date.

Part II, the invoices

One record per invoice: its number and date, the purchase order and letter of credit references, the buyer, the exchange rate and currency, the invoice value with its own freight, insurance, discount and commission, and the line items priced in the invoice currency.

Part III, the items

Every item on the bill as its own row, with the HS code, the description, quantity and unit, the rate, the value in foreign currency, the FOB value in rupees, and the scheme columns for drawback, IGST and RoDTEP.

Part IV, the schemes

The scheme paperwork: drawback and RoSCTL claims, advance authorisation or DFIA licences, jobbing, the single window declaration and its constituents, supporting documents, third party details, manufacturer details, RoDTEP and re-export.

Why the tool checks the bill against itself

A shipping bill states its own totals more than once. The header declares how many invoices, items and containers follow. The value summary in Part I should reconcile with the item values in Part III. Each invoice line should multiply out to its own stated value. So the document can be tested against itself, and that is what the verdict strip reports.

Two severities. An error means a figure this tool would not act on without a person looking: the FOB total not matching the sum of the items, the header declaring more invoices than the document contains, a missing or unparseable shipping bill number, or a file that turns out to hold several bills stapled together. A warning means something worth a glance rather than a stop: a container count that differs because an air consignment lists no containers, or a line where quantity times rate lands a rupee away from the printed value.

A clean bill and a bill with warnings are both perfectly normal. What the check buys you is knowing which one you have, before the figure travels into a claim.

From the shipping bill to the eBRC

An eBRC is the Electronic Bank Realisation Certificate that records an export payment arriving and being realised in India. Since the DGFT revamped the system it is self-certified: your bank reports the inward remittance, and you certify which export it paid for. Certifying that means naming the shipping bill, its date, the port code, the invoice and the value, which is precisely the set at the top of this page.

The tool stops at reading. Filing is the next step, and the eBRC exporter app is where it happens: connect a DGFT account once, and inward remittances arrive on their own to be mapped against bills like this one. It is free at any volume, with no certificate limit and no paid tier for exporters. If you are putting bills through software rather than by hand, the same reader is available over the eBRC API.

Two related pieces of reference are worth a look while you are here: the Indian port code lookup, for the code in the header of the bill you just read, and how shipping bills actually close in EDPMS, which is the process this document is eventually judged by.

If the document itself is the unfamiliar part rather than the filing, what a shipping bill is walks its fields and its types, and the difference between a shipping bill and a bill of entry settles the one that gets mixed up most. Getting your own copies out of the portal in the first place needs an ICEGATE registration and login, and when the portal refuses a bill rather than returning it, the error codes are listed with what each one means.

Questions people ask about reading a shipping bill

Yes. Ten shipping bills a day, with no sign-up, no account and no card. The ten are counted per internet connection rather than per person, because there is no account to count against, so an office sharing one connection shares them, and the count resets at midnight IST. The limit exists so the tool stays free for everyone rather than becoming somebody's batch process. The eBRC exporter app reads bills with no limit at all and is also free, at any volume.

It is read, the fields come back, and the file is kept. We store it so the extractor can be improved against the real bills people upload, which is how the parsers get better at the layouts customs actually produces. There is no account, no email box and no cookie set for this tool. The only thing counted is how many bills have come from your internet connection today, and that count is a number against a one-way fingerprint of your connection, holding no part of your document and no address we could read back.

The PDF customs generates on ICEGATE, downloaded as a file. It carries a text layer, which is what makes every field readable exactly as printed. A scan of a printout or a photograph taken on a phone has no text layer and is refused rather than guessed at, because a guess about a customs value is worse than a clear refusal.

Upload the PDF here and download the result as CSV, which opens directly in Excel or Google Sheets. There are two sheets: the filing fields, which are the ones a realisation certificate asks for, and the item lines, which are one row per item with the HS code, quantity, rate and values. The whole parsed document is also available as JSON.

It means one of the document's own totals does not reconcile with its own detail. A shipping bill declares its invoice, item and container counts in the header and states its values twice, so it can be checked against itself. The common findings are a FOB value that does not equal the sum of the item values, a header count that does not match the table beneath it, or a file that turns out to contain more than one shipping bill. Warnings are milder, such as an air consignment listing no containers.

Everything the bill prints. The header gives the shipping bill number and date, the port code, the IEC and GSTIN and the declared counts. Part I gives the exporter and consignee, the AD code and bank details, the value summary with FOB, freight, insurance, discount, commission and deductions, the invoice summary and the container table. Part II gives each invoice with its buyer, currency, exchange rate and line items. Part III gives every item with its HS code and values. Part IV gives the export scheme tables.

Because an eBRC is self-certified against a specific export. The bank reports the inward remittance to the DGFT, and the exporter certifies which export it paid for by naming the shipping bill number, its date, the port code, the invoice and the value. Those are the fields at the top of the result here, which is why they are shown first.

Yes. The reader on this page is the same one behind the eBRC API, which platforms and enterprises call from their own systems to read bills in volume. The API is a separate product with its own published limits, and none of them apply to the eBRC exporter app.

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Reading the bill is a minute. The certificate is the point.

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The eBRC exporter app is free at any volume. No certificate limit, no card required.