ACI and the Nafeza Platform: What Every Importer Must Do Before the Shipment Sails
ACI and the Nafeza Platform: What Every Importer Must Do Before the Shipment Sails
Advance Cargo Information is a pre-shipment obligation — not paperwork you catch up on after arrival.
What ACI actually changes
Under Egypt's Advance Cargo Information (ACI) system, cargo data is registered on the Nafeza single window before the goods leave the origin country. The importer files the shipment data and receives an ACID number, which then has to appear on the shipping documents issued abroad.
The practical consequence is a change of sequence. Clearance no longer starts when the vessel berths; it starts weeks earlier, at the moment you and your supplier agree on the shipment.
The working sequence
- Importer registration — a valid importer record and an active Nafeza account.
- Request the ACID — file the shipment and supplier data on Nafeza before shipping.
- Send the ACID to the exporter — it must be quoted on the bill of lading, the commercial invoice and the packing list.
- Exporter uploads the documents — the supplier submits the document set electronically for matching against your declaration.
- Arrival and release — a matched, pre-registered file moves through inspection and release far faster than one assembled at the quay.
Where importers lose money
- Shipping before the ACID exists — the carrier's documents then carry no valid number.
- A mismatch between the declared data and the supplier's invoice: quantities, values, or consignee details.
- Supplier data registered incorrectly, so the document match fails and the file stalls.
- Treating ACI as the freight forwarder's problem: the obligation sits with the importer of record.
How Ranisy handles it
We open the file with the ACID request, not with the arrival notice. We check the supplier's document set against the declaration before departure, chase the exporter's upload, and keep the shipment matched end to end — so inspection and release are the only steps left when the vessel arrives.
Shipping into Egypt for the first time? Talk to us before you confirm the booking — that is the point where ACI problems are cheap to prevent and expensive to fix.
