Quayside delivery

Quayside delivery is delivery of cargo onto the quay or over the ship’s rail at the discharge port, where the carrier’s carriage responsibility ends. Under the old ex-ship-rail custom the carrier discharged to the quay and the consignee took the goods from there, handling onward movement and clearance. It marks the liability cut-off in trades on free-out or liner-in-free-out terms, fixing the point where care of the cargo passes from carrier to receiver. The phrase predates containerization, when cargo crossed the rail piece by piece; modern terminal delivery records the same handover at the quay or terminal gate.