Extract data from sea waybills
A sea waybill carries an ocean shipment the way a bill of lading does, but with one decision that changes everything downstream: it is not negotiable and it is not a document of title. The carrier delivers the cargo to the named consignee on proof of identity, and no original paper has to travel ahead of the ship or be surrendered at the counter. That is the whole point of it. Where a negotiable bill of lading exists to be endorsed and traded while the goods are afloat, a sea waybill is used when the parties already know each other, an intercompany move or a sale on open-account terms, and want release to be quick. The CMI Uniform Rules for Sea Waybills of 1990 set the framework, and the UN convention known as the Rotterdam Rules addresses both this document and the bill of lading. On the page a sea waybill looks close to its negotiable cousin, which is exactly why the distinction matters when the data is captured. It names the shipper, the consignee, and the notify party, the carrier and the vessel and voyage, the place of receipt, the port of loading, the port of discharge, and the place of delivery, and it lists the cargo by container: container number and its type, the seal, the marks and numbers, the number and kind of packages, the gross mass, the measurement in cubic metres, and an HS commodity code. Freight and charges are stated prepaid or collect in a single currency. A capture pipeline has to record that the document is a sea waybill and not a bill of lading, because a downstream system that treats a non-negotiable waybill as a title document will ask for an original that does not exist. Hand the sea waybill to Talonic and the parties, the transport leg, and the cargo come back as structured fields, with each container and each cargo line as its own row. A waybill issued 2026-05-06 by a carrier moving two 40-foot containers on the vessel Pacific Aster from Yokohama to Oakland, 18,600 KG of auto parts under HS 8708.99 against booking BK-2026-3391, with freight prepaid at USD 4,250.00, loads into a transport system as data the consignee can clear against on arrival. The document type is recorded as a sea waybill so no one downstream waits on an original bill of lading, and every value links to its source region for the US customs broker and the carrier to check.
What gets extracted from sea waybills
How extraction works for sea waybills
Sea waybills reach an office as carrier PDFs, forwarder exports, and scanned copies, and they share a layout family with the negotiable bill of lading. Talonic classifies the document, records that it is a non-negotiable sea waybill, and maps it to the ocean-transport model in the Field Registry, which holds the shipper, consignee, notify party, and carrier as header fields and returns the containers and cargo lines as their own arrays. Container numbers are validated against the ISO 6346 check digit, the gross mass and measurement are typed with explicit units, the HS commodity code is read per cargo line, and freight is captured as prepaid or collect in the stated currency. Every value returns with a confidence score and a pixel-region pointer conforming to DIN SPEC 91491, so a US customs broker or the carrier can verify a container number or a consignee against the source before release, and the recorded document type keeps a non-negotiable waybill from being handled as a title document.
Sample extraction
A non-negotiable sea waybill, two containers Yokohama to Oakland, freight prepaid
{
"document_number": "SWB-2026-3391",
"document_date": "2026-05-06",
"booking_reference": "BK-2026-3391",
"shipper.name": "Yokohama Auto Parts K.K.",
"consignee.name": "Acme Imports LLC",
"carrier.name": "Ocean Network Express",
"vessel_name": "Pacific Aster",
"voyage_number": "124E",
"port_of_loading": "JPYOK Yokohama",
"port_of_discharge": "USOAK Oakland",
"freight_and_charges": "USD 4,250.00 prepaid",
"currency": "USD",
"containers": [
{
"container_number": "ONEU4471203",
"container_type": "40HC",
"seal_number": "SL889210",
"gross_mass": "9,300 KG"
},
{
"container_number": "ONEU4471299",
"container_type": "40HC",
"seal_number": "SL889211",
"gross_mass": "9,300 KG"
}
],
"cargo_lines": [
{
"cargo_description": "Automotive parts",
"number_of_packages": "620 cartons",
"gross_mass": "18,600 KG",
"commodity_code": "8708.99"
}
]
}Frequently asked
How is a sea waybill different from a bill of lading?
A sea waybill is not negotiable and is not a document of title. The carrier releases the cargo to the named consignee on proof of identity, with no original document to surrender, so there is nothing to endorse or trade while the goods are afloat. A bill of lading can be negotiable and often must be surrendered. Talonic records which document it read.
Does that mean no telex release is needed?
Correct in effect. Because a sea waybill has no negotiable original, the release does not depend on surrendering paper or arranging a telex release the way a bill of lading can. The consignee is identified and takes delivery, and the extraction simply records the parties and cargo.
Is it different from a road or air waybill?
Yes. A road or rail waybill, such as a CMR note, and an air waybill under IATA rules cover other modes. A sea waybill is the ocean-carriage version of a non-negotiable transport document. Each rides on its own schema, and the four are cross-linked so the right one is used.
Are containers and cargo captured line by line?
Each container returns with its number, ISO type, and seal, and each cargo line with its description, marks and numbers, package count, gross mass, measurement, and HS commodity code, so a multi-container sea waybill stays itemized rather than flattened into a single block.
Ready to extract from your own sea waybills?
Author note
Reviewed by Talonic engineering · last reviewed 2026-07-07