CMR liability limits: what the carrier actually pays when cargo is lost or damaged

A forwarder books a full truck of automotive parts from Bursa to Stuttgart: 18 pallets, 9,400 kg gross, invoice value €142,000. At the consignee's dock two pallets come off the trailer with crushed corners and broken parts inside. The shipper's first question is usually "the carrier will pay for it, right?" The honest answer is "some of it, if the paperwork is in order."

International road freight between two countries is governed by the CMR Convention whenever at least one of them is a contracting state, which covers practically all of Europe, Turkey, the Caucasus and Central Asia. CMR makes the carrier liable for loss, damage and delay, but it also caps that liability tightly. Here is how the numbers work.

When is the carrier liable at all?

Under article 17 the carrier is liable for total or partial loss and for damage that happens between taking over the goods and delivering them, and for delay in delivery. It escapes liability if the loss came from:

• the claimant's own wrongful act or instructions,
• inherent vice of the goods,
• circumstances the carrier could not avoid and whose consequences it could not prevent.

Article 17(4) adds a list of "special risks". The ones that come up most in practice are defective or missing packing, loading and stowage done by the shipper, and the nature of certain goods that makes them prone to damage (breakage, rust, decay, leakage). If the shipper loaded and stowed the trailer and the cargo shifted, the carrier will point to this clause first.

How compensation is calculated

Compensation is based on the value of the goods at the place and time the carrier took them over (article 23). Then a cap applies: 8.33 SDR per kilogram of gross weight short. SDR (Special Drawing Rights) is the IMF's unit of account, and its rate moves daily; check the IMF site on the day you calculate.

On top of that, the carrier refunds the carriage charges, customs duties and other charges paid for the shipment: in full if the whole consignment is lost, proportionally if part of it is.

For damage rather than loss, article 25 says the carrier pays the amount by which the goods lost value, but never more than it would have paid if the damaged part had been lost entirely.

Worked example

Back to the two damaged pallets. They weigh 520 kg each, so 1,040 kg are affected. Their share of the invoice is roughly €15,800, and the consignee's surveyor writes them off completely.

• Cap: 1,040 kg × 8.33 SDR = 8,663 SDR, roughly €10,000 at recent rates.
• Value lost: €15,800.
• Carrier pays: the lower of the two, so about €10,000, plus the proportional share of freight (2/18 of the freight charge).

The remaining €5,800 or so stays with the shipper, or with the cargo insurer if there is a policy.

Low-weight, high-value goods are where this hurts most. A 300 kg pallet of electronics worth €60,000 has a CMR ceiling of about 2,500 SDR. That is less than 5% of its value.

Delay

If goods arrive late and that causes a loss, compensation cannot exceed the carriage charges (article 23(5)). If the freight was €2,400, €2,400 is the most the carrier will pay for delay, regardless of production lines standing still at the consignee.

Three ways past the limit

1. Declared value (article 24). The shipper can enter a value higher than the cap in the consignment note, against a surcharge agreed with the carrier. The declared value then replaces the 8.33 SDR limit.
2. Special interest in delivery (article 26). Similar mechanism, covering consequential loss or delay. Again it has to be written in the consignment note and paid for.
3. Wilful misconduct (article 29). If the loss was caused by the carrier's wilful misconduct, or by a fault that the court's own law treats as equal to it, the carrier loses the benefit of the limits. Courts set the bar high; leaving a loaded trailer unattended in an unsecured lay-by is the classic argued case, and outcomes vary by country.

In practice very few shippers use articles 24 or 26. Cargo insurance covering the full invoice value plus 10% is cheaper and simpler to claim.

The deadlines that kill most claims

Most CMR claims fail on time limits rather than on the merits.

• Apparent loss or damage: reservations must be made at delivery, ideally written on the CMR itself with the carrier's driver present ("2 pallets crushed, wrap torn, contents not checked").
• Non-apparent damage: written reservations to the carrier within 7 days of delivery, Sundays and public holidays excluded (article 30).
• Delay: written reservations within 21 days from the time the goods were placed at the consignee's disposal. Miss this and no delay compensation is payable at all.
• Legal action: one year, or three years in the case of wilful misconduct (article 32). Sending a written claim suspends the period until the carrier rejects it in writing.

If the consignee signs a clean CMR and nothing is sent within those windows, the goods are presumed to have been delivered in the condition described in the consignment note.

What to collect on the day

When damage shows up at the dock, the claim is won or lost in the next hour:

• reservations written on the consignee's CMR copy and signed by the driver,
• photos of the trailer interior before unloading continues, the seal number, and each damaged unit,
• the weighbridge ticket or packing list showing the gross weight of the affected pallets,
• the commercial invoice showing the value of those exact items,
• a written notice to the carrier the same day, with the cargo insurer in copy.

The carrier's reservations in box 18 matter too. If the driver wrote "loaded and stowed by shipper, count not checked" at loading, expect the carrier to rely on article 17(4) and the shipper's packing.

Keeping the file together

Claims stall when the signed CMR is in a driver's cab, the photos are in someone's phone and the invoice is in accounting. In LojiMind's road freight module the scanned CMR is read into the shipment file, so the weights, reservations and dates needed for a claim are on the same record as the booking and the invoice.