CY-CY Term

CY stands for Container Yard. Container Yard is a place within a port or terminal where containers are stored before it is loaded on the ship in the case of exports or offloaded from the ship in the case of imports. In some cases in the body of a bill of lading you might have seen a notation CY/CY or in the Port of Loading or Port of Discharge fields in the bill of lading, you might have seen this added after the name of the port, like so (Durban CY). This means that the responsibility of the carrier either begins (in the case of Port of Load) or ends (in the case of Port of Discharge) at the Container Yard. In some ports, as part of the export process, the container maybe received at a point other than the Container Yard and there might be an additional movement involved (with or without cost) to move it to the Container Yard. Similarly as part of the import process, the container might have to be moved from the Container Yard to a different yard or staging area (with or without cost) before it is loaded on the importers truck. In such cases, if the notation of CY/CY is present on the bill of lading, the shipper/consignee will be responsible for any movement, costs or risks before the container is delivered to the carrier at the CY or picked up from the CY.