RCL slaps $17 per Bill of Lading on UAE-bound cargo from October 2026

Regional Container Lines (RCL) will charge $17 per Bill of Lading on all cargo entering, transiting or transshipping through UAE ports, effective 16 October 2026, based on the vessel's departure date at origin. The carrier is passing on the cost of complying with the UAE's Maritime Preload Cargo Information (MPCI) programme, also known as the Advance Manifest Filing requirement.

The regulation obliges shipping lines to submit import cargo manifest data electronically to UAE Customs before a vessel departs its last foreign port outside the country. In other words, the paperwork now has to be finished before the ship even sails for the Emirates. That's a hard deadline, not a suggestion.

What cargo does the MPCI programme cover?

The scope is broad. The mandatory filing requirement applies to all containerised maritime cargo entering or passing through UAE ports, specifically:

• Local imports destined for clearance in the UAE
• Transshipment cargo discharged in the UAE for onward connection
• Transit and Freight Remaining on Board (FROB) cargo passing through the UAE without discharge

That third category matters. Even boxes that never touch a UAE quay — staying on board while the ship calls at Jebel Ali or elsewhere — fall under the rule. Shippers who assumed transit cargo would escape the paperwork will need to think again.

What does this change for shippers and forwarders?

The surcharge itself is modest: $17 per Bill of Lading, charge code 42910, covering import, transshipment, transit and FROB movements, in US dollars. RCL said the fee covers the preparation, processing and electronic transmission of the required shipment information. On a single-box shipment that's lunch money. On a programme of hundreds of bills a month moving through UAE hub ports, it adds up quietly but persistently.

The bigger commercial risk sits in the timing rules, not the tariff. Customers must submit complete and accurate Shipping Instructions or Bill of Lading drafts no later than 48 hours before the vessel's estimated arrival at the port of loading. RCL warned that incomplete or late submissions could result in cargo being rolled or receiving a Do Not Load instruction from UAE Customs.

A Do Not Load order is the operational nightmare scenario. Miss the cut-off and the box doesn't just pay a fee — it misses the sailing, and the supply chain inherits the delay. For forwarders running tight documentation cycles, a 48-hour SI deadline before loading effectively pulls the paperwork window forward by two full days on every UAE-linked booking.

Why carriers are itemising the cost

RCL isn't alone in treating regulatory compliance as a separately billed service rather than an absorbed overhead. Advance manifest regimes elsewhere — the US 24-hour rule, Canada's AMPS, Europe's ENS — have all spawned comparable per-bill surcharges across the industry. The UAE's MPCI simply extends the pattern to Gulf trade lanes, and carriers are following the established playbook: itemise, transmit, invoice.

For shippers, the practical to-do list is short. Align documentation teams with the 48-hour SI cut-off, verify that transit and FROB cargo is included in filing workflows, and budget the $17 per bill into lane economics from late 2026.

Expect other carriers calling UAE ports to roll out matching surcharges as the MPCI deadline approaches — this is rarely a fee one line carries alone.