Reference

Chartering abbreviations

Published 20 August 2026 · updated 22 September 2026

A circular arrives as fifty words of shorthand and a broker is expected to read it at a glance. The letters are not decoration: most name an obligation, and a few decide who pays for a week in port. They are grouped below by where you meet them.

Nobody standardised any of this

There is no registry of chartering abbreviations and no body issuing them. They grew out of telex charges, they vary by trade, region and desk, and the same letters mean different things in different rooms. SPOT is a ship ready now, and also a single voyage at market rate as against a period charter. GA is general average to a chartering broker and the general arrangement plan to a superintendent.

The nearest authority is the Laytime Definitions for Charter Parties from BIMCO, CMI, FONASBA and the Baltic Exchange, and they bind only if the charterparty incorporates them. Otherwise a term means whatever a tribunal decides the parties meant, and the tribunal was not on the call.

Dates, and where she opens

These sit on a position list and at the top of a recap. Only one is a promise.

Short	In full	What it commits you to
ETA	Estimated time of arrival	An estimate, not a warranty, and it moves. The laycan is the contractual window and only it carries a cancelling right.
ETD	Estimated time of departure	The same standing as an ETA, and what a position list is built on: when she is next free, not where she is now.
ETS	Estimated time of sailing	Used interchangeably with ETD. No argument has ever been won on the difference.
Prompt	Ready now or within a few days	No fixed number of days attaches to it. Ask for a date before you quote her.
Spot	Ready immediately, or a single voyage	Settled by context: availability on a position, the market in a rate discussion.
DLOSP	Dropping last outward sea pilot	A time charter delivery or redelivery point. Hire starts or stops when the outbound pilot steps off, not at the berth.
APS	Arrival pilot station	Delivery at the pilot station of the first load port. The owner carries the ballast leg to get there.

half

How many AIS destinations resolve to a real port: 47,399 of 94,337 fixes. An ETA is present on 86% of them, so the weakness is not absence. Destination is free text keyed by the crew: abbreviated, stale or wrong, and an ETA is where she says she is going. An ETA on a circular is at least a person’s estimate, made to a broker who will be held to it.

Cargo, quantity and the berth she has to fit

From a cargo enquiry. Every one narrows the list of ships that can do the job.

Short	In full	What it commits you to
MOLOO	More or less owner’s option	The quantity tolerance, declared by the owner. 30,000 mt 10% MOLOO is a range of 27,000 to 33,000 and the owner picks.
MOLCHOPT	More or less charterer’s option	The same range, charterer picking. Freight and the risk of a part cargo move with the option.
CHOPT	Charterer’s option	Any option in the charterer’s gift: cargo, grade, discharge port from a range. Write down when it must be declared.
WOG	Without guarantee	Given honestly, not warranted. On speed, consumption, quantity or an ETA it removes the claim you would otherwise have had.
TBN	To be nominated	The ship is not named yet. The owner must produce one answering the description, which is now the whole of your protection.
SF	Stowage factor	The cubic space one tonne of cargo occupies. It decides whether she fills by weight or by volume: a light cargo fills the holds before she is at her marks.
AAAA	Always afloat, always accessible	The charterer warrants a berth she can reach and lie at without touching bottom. Whether accessible covers leaving as well as arriving has been argued.
NAABSA	Not always afloat but safely aground	She may sit on the bottom at low water. Only for soft-bottom berths, and only if the hull and her class accept it.
AWIWL	Always within Institute Warranty Limits	A trading limit, taken from the hull underwriter’s navigating conditions. Most of the excluded water is seasonal, and going outside is a matter of telling the underwriter and paying an additional premium rather than a prohibition.
SWAD	Salt water arrival draught	The draught she may present on arrival in salt water.
BWAD	Brackish water arrival draught	The same in brackish water, which is less dense, so she floats deeper for the same weight. The difference is cargo.

Who pays, and when the clock runs

The expensive group: who pays to move cargo across the ship’s rail, and how fast laytime is consumed.

Short	In full	What it commits you to
FIOST	Free in, out, stowed and trimmed	The charterer pays loading, discharging, stowing and trimming. Freight covers the carriage and nothing else.
FIOS	Free in and out, stowed	As FIOST without trimming. Somebody still has to trim a bulk cargo, so name who.
FILO	Free in, liner out	The charterer pays to load, the owner pays to discharge.
LIFO	Liner in, free out	The exact mirror of FILO, one letter away from it in a recap. Read it twice.
GENCON	BIMCO’s standard voyage charterparty form	Naming it imports a set of defaults. State the edition: Gencon 1994 and Gencon 2022 do not read the same.
NYPE	New York Produce Exchange time charter form	Same point. NYPE 1946, 1993 and 2015 differ in substance, and NYPE alone does not say which.
WWD	Weather working day	Laytime runs only when the weather permits the cargo to be worked. Rain at an open grain berth stops the clock.
SHINC	Sundays and holidays included	Laytime runs through the weekend and through holidays.
SHEX	Sundays and holidays excepted	It does not. Where the working week runs differently you will see FHEX and FHINC, for Fridays.
EIU	Even if used	With SHEX, excepted time stays excepted even when she worked cargo through it.
UU	Unless used	With SHEX, excepted time counts if it was actually worked. Two letters, and the opposite answer to EIU.
ATDNSHINC	Any time day or night, Sundays and holidays included	Laytime runs continuously from the moment it starts.
WIPON / WIBON	Whether in port or not, whether in berth or not	Lets notice of readiness be tendered before she is inside the port or on the berth. WIBON answers congestion, not a berth unavailable for another reason.
WIFPON / WICCON	Whether in free pratique or not, whether customs cleared or not	Lets the notice be tendered before health clearance and customs. Without them a valid notice waits on a formality nobody on the fixture controls.

The deal itself

The contract, and the documents that come out of it.

Short	In full	What it commits you to
CP	Charterparty	The contract. The CP date is the date it was concluded, and more clocks run from it than people expect.
SUB	Subjects	Conditions outstanding: sub stem, sub details, sub shippers’ or receivers’ approval. Nothing is fixed until they are lifted, and a deadline for lifting belongs in the recap.
FIXT	Fixture, fixed	A concluded deal. In a market report it means somebody else got there first.
COA	Contract of affreightment	A series of cargoes over a period, ships nominated as each comes up. It commits tonnage of a description, not a hull.
TCT	Time charter trip	Hire by the day for one trip, redelivery in a named range. The charterer buys her time and the bunkers.
FOB	Free on board	The seller’s job ends when the cargo is on board. The buyer charters the ship, so the buyer is your charterer.
CFR	Cost and freight	The seller pays freight to the named discharge port, so the seller is the charterer.
CIF	Cost, insurance and freight	CFR with cargo insurance added. Same answer on who charters.
NOR	Notice of readiness	The ship’s statement that she has arrived and is ready in every respect. Laytime starts from it, subject to the charterparty’s conditions.
SOF	Statement of facts	The agent’s timed log of events in port, and the evidence every laytime calculation is built on. Signed by parties with opposing interests.
LOI	Letter of indemnity	A promise to cover the consequences, usually of discharging without original bills of lading. It is worth what the giver is worth, and P&I cover is normally excluded.
GA	General average	A sacrifice made for the common safety is shared between ship and cargo. Declaring it holds the cargo until security is posted.

Where a dispute starts

Shorthand is safe when it describes a ship and dangerous when it describes an obligation. A circular reading 85,000 dwt open Singapore 18-21 spot costs nobody anything if it is read loosely. A recap reading SHEX with no EIU or UU has left open a question worth demurrage a day, answered months later by people reading the words rather than remembering the call.

Three habits close most of it. Expand in full anything that allocates money: cargo handling terms, laytime exceptions, delivery and redelivery points. Name the edition of any standard form you invoke. And when a counterparty uses a term you have not seen, ask what they mean by it: the honest answer is often that their desk uses it differently from yours.

The letters compress things everyone in the room already agreed. That works until the room changes.

References

BIMCO, CMI, FONASBA and the Baltic Exchange, Laytime Definitions for Charter Parties 2013, 2013. fonasba.com
FONASBA (Federation of National Associations of Ship Brokers and Agents), Documentation. fonasba.com
BIMCO, GENCON 2022 voyage charter party, 2022. bimco.org
IMO, International Convention on Load Lines, 1966. imo.org

How to read a tonnage circularThe open-tonnage e-mail: the fields, the abbreviations that ride on the line, and why the ship's name is the hard part. How to read a cargo enquiryThe e-mail saying a charterer needs something moved, walked field by field, and why an enquiry is not an offer. Laycan: laydays and cancellingTwo dates doing opposite jobs: the earliest a charterer must accept the ship, and the latest they may walk away from her. The fixture recapThe e-mail that says what was agreed. Written in minutes, read by a tribunal years later, and the contract until the charterparty is drawn. What a ship broker doesThe job itself: two lists nobody publishes, a market with no screen, and a commission earned only when a deal concludes. Navigating limits and AWIWLFour letters on a recap standing for a hull underwriter’s list of water, most of it excluded only in winter, and none of it forbidden.

Neptune Atlas

Neptune Atlas keeps a pasted circular as the text that arrived and as the fields parsed out of it, so the shorthand a broker actually received sits beside the structured position rather than replacing it. Nothing is auto-accepted: a person reviews every parsed line before it reaches the position list. Fixtures and laytime calculations then hold the terms as fields, not as letters in a free-text note. Every paid plan starts with 7 free days. A card is needed to start them, and cancelling before they end costs nothing.

Try 7 days free Ship chartering software for brokers What each plan includes