Freight damage claim deadlines, and the one that starts the day it arrives
How long you actually have to claim against a carrier in the US, where those limits come from, and why concealed damage runs on a much shorter clock than the law's minimum.
In short
- Nine months is the floor a carrier must give you for filing, not a target to aim at. The practical deadline is much shorter and it is set by evidence, not by law.
- Concealed damage runs on a tariff clock, commonly five to fifteen days, and no statute protects you from it.
- A clean signature does not end a claim, but it moves the burden onto you to prove the damage happened in transit.
Three different clocks start when a damaged pallet comes off a truck, and people usually only know about the longest one.
Clock one: the filing deadline
For interstate motor freight in the United States, carrier liability runs through the Carmack Amendment. It does not set a deadline itself; it sets a floor under what a carrier is allowed to impose. A bill of lading cannot give you less than nine months to file a claim, or less than two years from the date a claim is disallowed to bring suit. Check the bill of lading for the actual number, because nine months is the minimum and many carriers use exactly it.
Clock two: concealed damage
This is the one that costs people money. If the outer packaging looked fine, you signed clean, and the damage is found when the carton is opened three days later, you are outside the comfortable case. Carrier tariffs typically require notice of concealed damage within five to fifteen days of delivery, and that period is a matter of the contract you accepted rather than of federal law. There is no statutory backstop underneath it.
Worth knowing
Keep the packaging. Concealed damage claims are decided on whether the outer carton shows evidence consistent with the damage inside. Flattening the box and putting it in the skip before you photograph it is, in practice, the end of the claim.
Clock three: the evidence
The real deadline is not on any document. It is the point at which the pallet has been broken down, the wrap binned, the goods moved into stock, and nobody can now show what arrived in what state. That can be twenty minutes. Every hour after delivery makes a claim weaker regardless of how many months the bill of lading allows.
What a filed claim has to contain
The federal rules on claim processing are specific about what turns a complaint into a claim the carrier has to act on. In substance it needs to identify the shipment, assert liability for the loss or damage, and demand a specific amount of money. A phone call to a depot is not a claim. An email that says “this arrived damaged, please advise” is not a claim, because it names no figure.
| Include | Why |
|---|---|
| Bill of lading or pro number | Identifies the shipment. Without it nothing can be looked up. |
| Delivery date and the signed receipt | Shows what was noted at delivery, or that nothing was. |
| A specific dollar amount | A claim without a figure is not a claim under the claim-processing rules. |
| Supplier invoice for the goods | Establishes value. A carrier will not take your word for it. |
| Photographs of packaging and contents | Decides concealed damage cases almost on their own. |
| Repair or replacement cost, if less than full value | Carriers settle faster on the smaller of the two. |
Once a claim is filed, the carrier is required to acknowledge it and, within 120 days, to pay it, decline it, or make a settlement offer, or to explain why it cannot yet do any of those. That is a useful thing to know, because it means silence is not something you have to accept quietly.
Carrier or supplier?
Work out who you are claiming against before you write anything, because the answer decides which rules apply. Damage caused in transit is a carrier matter. Wrong item, short count against the order, or goods that were defective before they were loaded is a supplier matter, and the UCC framework in what signing actually commits you to is the relevant one. Freight terms matter too: they decide who owns the goods while they are on the truck, and therefore who has the claim.
This describes how the rules generally work in the United States and links to the primary sources so you can read them yourself. It is not legal advice, and your contract with a supplier or carrier can change any of it. For money that matters, ask a lawyer.
Sources
- 0149 U.S.C. § 14706: Liability of carriers under receipts and bills of lading · Cornell Legal Information InstituteSubsection (e) sets the minimum periods a carrier is allowed to provide: nine months to file a claim, two years from disallowance to bring suit.
- 0249 CFR Part 370: Principles and practices for the investigation and voluntary disposition of loss and damage claims · Electronic Code of Federal RegulationsDefines what counts as a filed claim and requires the carrier to acknowledge and pay, decline or make a settlement offer within 120 days.
DockCount does this job on a phone at the bay: count a delivery against the order it was placed on, photograph anything wrong, and the record writes itself. What receiving software costs, and the free tier.