Through bill of lading

A through bill of lading is a single transport document covering carriage over more than one leg or by more than one carrier from origin to a final destination, where part of the journey is sub-contracted. The issuing carrier contracts for the whole movement but may act only as carrier on its own leg and as agent arranging on-carriage for the rest, which limits its liability beyond its own segment. It differs from a combined or multimodal transport document such as the FIATA FBL, where the operator takes single-party responsibility for the entire multimodal carriage. The through bill predates and is narrower than true multimodal liability.