Cost Insurance and Freight (CIF)

Use of this rule is restricted to goods transported by sea or inland waterway.

In practice it should be used for situations where the seller has direct access to the vessel for loading, e.g. bulk cargos or non-containerised goods.

For containerised goods, consider ‘Carriage and Insurance Paid CIP’ instead.

Seller arranges and pays for transport to named port. Seller delivers goods, cleared for export, loaded on board the vessel.

However risk transfers from seller to buyer once the goods have been loaded on board, i.e. before the main carriage takes place.

Seller also arranges and pays for insurance for the goods for carriage to the named port.

However as with “Carriage and Insurance Paid To”, the rule only require a minimum level of cover, which may be commercially unrealistic. Therefore the level of cover may need to be addressed elsewhere in the commercial agreement.