A container arrives at your warehouse with a dented rail and a rusted-through patch in the roof. Six weeks later a bill arrives from the steamship line for repairs. Nobody remembers who damaged what, and the only document anyone can find is a smudged photocopy nobody looked at when it was signed.

This is the interchange receipt problem, and it costs importers money for one reason: the paperwork that decides liability gets signed in thirty seconds by a driver in a queue.

What an interchange receipt actually is

The Equipment Interchange Receipt (EIR), sometimes just called the interchange or the gate receipt, is the document created every time custody of a container or chassis passes between parties — terminal to trucker, trucker to consignee, consignee back to trucker, trucker back to the depot.

It records the condition of the equipment at that moment. That is its entire purpose. If a container leaves the terminal with a clean interchange and comes back with a hole in it, the damage happened on your watch, and the repair bill follows the chain of custody.

Most disputes are not really about whether damage exists. They are about when it appeared, and the interchange receipts are the only evidence anyone will accept.

What gets inspected

A meaningful equipment inspection covers:

• Structural — dents, holes, cracks, bowed panels, damaged corner castings
• Doors and seals — gaskets, hinges, locking bars, whether doors close and seal properly
• Roof — the most commonly missed area, and the source of most water damage claims
• Floor — soft spots, splinters, contamination, previous cargo residue
• Reefer machinery — on refrigerated units, the operating condition and set point
• Chassis — tires, lights, brakes, landing gear, registration and inspection currency

The chassis matters as much as the box. A chassis with bald tires is both a liability question and a roadside inspection waiting to happen.

The four failure points

1. Signing a clean interchange on a damaged container

Terminal queues create pressure to move. A driver who signs without noting existing damage has just accepted responsibility for it. Once that signature exists, arguing later is close to hopeless.

2. Not photographing anything

A written note is good. A timestamped photograph at the gate is far better, because it is difficult to dispute and it captures things the note did not mention.

3. Discovering damage after unloading

If your warehouse finds a hole in the roof on day three, there is no way to prove the container did not leave the terminal that way. The inspection has to happen at interchange, not at unload.

4. Losing the paperwork

Interchange receipts get thrown away because they look like receipts. They are the only defence against a repair invoice that arrives months later.

What good practice looks like

Inspect and photograph at every interchange. Both directions. Out-gate and in-gate, pickup and return.

Note damage on the document before signing. Specific and written: “dent left rail mid-panel,” not “damaged.”

Keep everything, indexed by container number. A digital record retrievable by container number turns a two-week dispute into a two-minute email. This is one of the quieter benefits of running moves through a system that captures documents automatically — see our real-time container tracking post for how that works in practice.

Inspect before your cargo is loaded, not after. On export moves especially, a leaking roof discovered after stuffing is a cargo problem, not just an equipment problem.

Refuse genuinely unsafe equipment. A driver who declines a chassis with bad brakes is doing the right thing, even though it costs a trip. Our post on container chassis in drayage covers what to look for.

If a damage claim lands anyway

Work in this order:

1. Get the specific claim. What damage, on what equipment, discovered when and by whom.
2. Pull your interchange receipts for that container number, both directions.
3. Compare. If the damage is noted on the out-gate receipt, you did not cause it and the claim should be withdrawn.
4. Produce photographs. These frequently end disputes on their own.
5. Question the repair estimate. Even where liability is genuine, the estimate is a number someone chose, and it is reviewable.
6. Respond in writing, promptly. Claims processes have deadlines, and silence is treated as acceptance.

Why this is a carrier selection question

Equipment inspection discipline is not something you can inspect from the outside — it lives in whether drivers are trained and given time to do it, and whether documents are captured systematically or stuffed into a cab. Asset-based carriers running their own equipment tend to be more rigorous about this, because they are also the ones paying for damage nobody documented. If you want to see how we handle it, our drayage services page is the place to start.

Frequently asked questions

What is an EIR in container shipping?

An Equipment Interchange Receipt documents the condition of a container or chassis at the moment custody passes between two parties. It is the primary evidence used to determine who is responsible for equipment damage.

Who pays for container damage found after delivery?

Generally the party who held custody when the damage occurred, which is determined by comparing interchange receipts. If damage is not noted on the out-gate receipt, the party who took the container is usually held responsible — which is why inspecting at the gate matters more than inspecting at the warehouse.

How long should I keep interchange receipts?

Long enough to cover the claim window your ocean carrier and equipment providers work to, which can be months. Keeping them indefinitely in digital form indexed by container number costs almost nothing and settles disputes quickly.