As the publisher of the Incoterms® 2010 rules, ICC is committed to serving its members and the broader international trading community by offering expert interpretive guidance on selected questions that have arisen regarding the Incoterms® 2010 rules. The guidance is intended to help users gain a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the Incoterms® rules, so that they can prepare clear and precise sale and purchase contracts, and avoid many of the common costly missteps that we see arising from the uninformed use of the rules.

ICC recognizes that each case involving the Incoterms® rules is different depending on place, parties, industry, applicable laws and relevant customs and usages, so we do not call this general guidance ‘official’ and readers should not expect it to be determinative in case of a dispute.

The Incoterms® rules Q&As are organized into three categories, starting with questions on the Incoterms® 2010 rules within each category, followed by historical questions on the Incoterms 1990 rules:

  1. General, which includes questions relating to more than one Incoterms® rule where at least one of the asked-about rules is from the multimodal category and at least one from the maritime category;
  2. Multimodal, dealing exclusively with the Incoterms® rules for use with any mode or modes of transport; and
  3. Maritime, dealing exclusively with the Incoterms® rules for use with sea or inland waterway transport.

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Readers are encouraged to supplement their learning on the rules by consulting the full text of Incoterms® 2010, at Annex 4, and the ICC Guide to Incoterms® 2010, available at the ICC Business Bookstore at: http://www.iccbooks.com/Product/ProductInfo. aspx?id=657

Why has ICC included old questions and answers relating to the Incoterms 1990 rules?

In 1998, ICC published a volume of questions and expert ICC answers relating to the then-current version of the Incoterms® rules, Incoterms 1990. We have decided to retain these older questions and answers here for several reasons:

  • Much of the thinking behind the Incoterms® rules remains pertinent from one revision to the next; and
  • Many readers will find it interesting to have a view onto the evolution of the rules themselves and, in some cases, their interpretation.

We recommend that you read through the Q&As for both Incoterms® 2010 and Incoterms 1990, as there is valuable general information included in the older answers that will doubtless enrich your understanding of the landscape in which the Incoterms® rules operate. Be careful, though, to remember when reading the older materials that (i) some of the rules that existed in earlier versions of the Incoterms® rules no longer exist, and (ii) other conditions in the international trading arena may have evolved in the years since the older materials were written.

Who provided the guidance on the Incoterms® 2010 rules questions on behalf of ICC?

The Incoterms® rules are supervised by an international committee of trade professionals and lawyers, known as the ICC Commission on Commercial Law and Practice. This Commission designated an international Drafting Group to prepare the Incoterms® 2010 rules, which agreed – along with an Incoterms® rules expert who serves as one of the Commission Co-Chairs – to provide their expert thinking on questions received by ICC on the operation and interpretation of the Incoterms® 2010 rules.

The historical answers relating to Incoterms 1990 were drafted by a dedicated Panel of Incoterms® Experts.