You signed “received in good order” and just lost €19,000
A 100 kg pallet carrying €20,000 of goods arrives crushed. In Europe the carrier's maximum liability is about €981 — not because they are crooks, but because that is exactly what the convention says. Ship the same pallet inside the United States and you would recover the lot. The difference is not the carrier. It is which body of law the load was travelling under.
The rule behind everything: you are paid by the kilo
A carrier's liability is not calculated on what your goods are worth. It is calculated on what they weigh, and it is capped by law rather than by the contract:
| Where | What you can recover | On a 100 kg pallet | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| International road carriage | 8.33 SDR per kilo of gross weight | ≈ €981 | CMR art. 23.3, as amended by the 1978 Protocol |
| United States, interstate | The actual loss — no weight cap at all | the full €20,000 | 49 U.S.C. 14706(a)(1), the Carmack Amendment |
| Spain, domestic | ⅓ of the daily IPREM per kilo | €667 | Ley 15/2009, art. 57 |
That middle row is not a typo, and it is the single most useful thing on this page if you ship on both sides of the Atlantic. The same crushed pallet is worth €981 in Europe and its full value in the United States, because the two systems were built on opposite ideas: the CMR gives the carrier a known ceiling, and Carmack makes them liable for what was actually lost. There is one way to throw the American position away, and you do it yourself — see “the two doors” below.
The SDR (Special Drawing Right) is an IMF basket of currencies, so the figure in euros moves a little every day: on 28 August 2026 one SDR was worth €1.1772, which is where the €9.81 comes from. Spain's daily IPREM has sat at €20 since 2023 because the budget keeps being rolled over; if it is ever updated, the domestic limit rises with it. The American figure has no such arithmetic behind it, because there is no formula: you prove what the goods were worth.
Notice what falls out of this, because it is counter-intuitive: the denser and more valuable your freight, the worse you are covered. An 800 kg pallet of fasteners is better covered than a 100 kg pallet of electronics worth twenty times as much.
The limit is worked out on the gross weight missing or damaged — goods, packaging and pallet included. That extra pallet weight counts in your favour, and it is one of the few times in freight when a heavy pallet is on your side.
Why the law is built that way
Because the carrier does not know what is in the box. They charge to move kilos and metres, not to look after value, and their rate does not price the risk that the carton holds microchips rather than floor tiles. If they were liable for value, they would have to charge like an insurer to everybody — including the person shipping tiles.
So the law gives them a known, predictable ceiling and leaves you two doors out of it. Both are below.
The signature: how to lose the argument in three seconds
This is where the money is actually lost, not in court. Article 30 of the CMR is blunt about it:
“If the consignee takes delivery of the goods without duly checking their condition with the carrier or without sending him reservations giving a general indication of the loss or damage, not later than the time of delivery in the case of apparent loss or damage and within seven days of delivery, Sundays and public holidays excepted, in the case of loss or damage which is not apparent, the fact of this taking delivery shall be prima facie evidence that he has received the goods in the condition described in the consignment note.”
In plain terms: signing with nothing written on it is a statement that the goods arrived fine. From that moment the burden of proof flips, and it is you who has to show the damage happened in transit. With the goods already unloaded in your warehouse, that is close to impossible.
| What happened | International (CMR) | United States | Spain |
|---|---|---|---|
| Apparent damage | At the time of delivery | Noted on the delivery receipt, at delivery | At the time of delivery |
| Non-apparent damage | 7 days, Sundays and holidays excepted | Whatever the carrier's terms say — commonly 5 days | 7 calendar days |
| Delay | 21 days, in writing | Under the same claim rules | 21 days |
| Time to file a claim | One year (three for wilful misconduct) | At least 9 months | One year |
| Time to sue after a denial | Within that same year | At least 2 years | Within that same year |
49 U.S.C. 14706(e) says a carrier may not give you less than nine months to file a claim, or less than two years from a written denial to sue. It does not say they must give you more, and most do not. Your real deadline is printed in the carrier's own bill of lading terms, and it is usually exactly the floor.
- DELIVERYApparent damage: the reservation goes here, on the carrier's copy. Afterwards it no longer counts.
- 7 DAYSNon-apparent damage. Internationally, Sundays and public holidays excepted.
- 21 DAYSClaim for delay, always in writing.
- 1 YEARThe claim period runs out. Three years for wilful misconduct.
A reservation that works and one that does not
Writing “reservations” is not the same as making one. A reservation counts if it describes what is wrong. It does not count if it only says that something is.
| Useless | Useful |
|---|---|
| “Subject to check” | “2 of 12 cartons with crushed corner, film torn on the right side” |
| “Item damaged” | “Pallet 3 tipped over, 4 cartons flattened, photographs taken with the driver present” |
| “Received unchecked” | “Seal 004512 broken on arrival; opened and counted 47 units of 50” |
And three practical things that always get forgotten:
- The reservation goes on the carrier's copy, not only on yours. Written on your own copy alone, the other side has no record of it.
- Photographs before unloading, with the item still on the lorry if you can. A photo of the pallet in your warehouse proves very little.
- Keep the packaging. It is the evidence of how the goods travelled. Throwing it out before the survey is the classic mistake.
A driver being in a hurry, or saying to “just sign it and we'll sort it out later”, changes none of the above. He is not the one who pays the claim or refuses it. Signing clean so as not to hold him up is one of the most expensive things done on a loading dock.
The two doors out of the cap
Everything in this section is about escaping a cap. Under Carmack there is no cap to escape: you start with the full actual loss. What the declared value box does there is the opposite — writing a low released value on the bill of lading is what creates a cap, in exchange for a cheaper rate. Same box, same words, and it works against you instead of for you. If you did not knowingly take a released-value rate, leave it blank.
1. Declare the value on the consignment note. Article 24 of the CMR allows it: against payment of an agreed surcharge, the sender declares a value exceeding the limit, “and in that case the amount of the declared value shall be substituted for that limit”. It exists, almost nobody uses it, and for a valuable one-off shipment it usually costs less than the loss.
2. Insure the goods yourself. Goods-in-transit cover insures value rather than weight, and it covers situations where the carrier is not liable at all — an accident that was not their fault, for instance. Which brings up a very common confusion worth stating plainly: carrier liability is not insurance on your goods. It is a ceiling on what they owe, and that ceiling is designed not to cover you fully.
There is a third route, but you do not choose it: if wilful misconduct or equivalent default is proven, the cap falls away. That is litigation, not a plan.
What this page does not do
It is not legal advice and it does not replace a lawyer or your policy. The limits, the deadlines and the grounds for exclusion have nuances — who the actual carrier is, what happens with subcontractors, how gross weight is counted when the damage is partial — that are settled case by case with the contract in front of you. What this page can do is stop you signing clean for a broken pallet without knowing what you are giving up.
Articles 23.3, 24, 30 and 32 of the CMR Convention (Geneva, 1956), with the 8.33 SDR per kilo limit introduced by the 1978 Protocol. For the United States, 49 U.S.C. 14706 — the Carmack Amendment — subsections (a)(1) for liability for the actual loss, (c)(1) for limitation by written declared value, and (e) for the nine-month and two-year floors. Articles 57 and 60 of Spain's Ley 15/2009 on the inland carriage of goods. Spanish daily IPREM for 2026: €20, rolled over from 2023. SDR valuation of 28 August 2026 from the IMF: 1 SDR = US$1.371280 and €1 = US$1.164900, giving 1 SDR = €1.1772. The euro conversions are of that date: the SDR moves daily.
What to take away
- Which law the load travels under decides everything. International CMR: about €9.81 a kilo. Inside the United States: the actual loss, in full. Inside Spain: €6.67 a kilo.
- The more valuable and the lighter your load, the worse it is covered.
- Signing clean states that it arrived fine. Visible damage, reservation at delivery. Hidden damage, seven days.
- A reservation counts only if it describes. “Item damaged” describes nothing.
- If the goods are worth real money, declare the value on the note or insure them. Carrier liability is not insurance.
- On a US bill of lading, the declared value box does the opposite: filling in a low released value is what caps you. If you did not take that rate on purpose, leave it blank.
- One year to bring a claim. It goes faster than it sounds.
And if what you need is the document itself, here is the consignment note to fill in and print: it tells you which mandatory particular is missing and prints as the three copies article 5 requires. The same page also does a US interstate bill of lading, which is a different document under different law — the United States is not a CMR country.
Since all of this is worked out on gross weight, it is worth knowing yours before anything happens: the billable weight calculator gives you the gross weight of the consignment alongside what you will be charged, and the mixed load calculator tells you whether the pallet was travelling in a state to arrive intact.