CMR consignment note

What it means

The CMR consignment note is the transport document for international road carriage of goods, based on the CMR convention. It is usually made out in three originals, for the sender, the consignee and the carrier, and all three parties sign it at loading and unloading.

It records the sender, consignee and carrier, the place and date of loading and delivery, the type of goods, the number of packages and the weight. The consignee confirms receipt with a stamp and signature and notes any reservations about the condition of the goods.

The CMR convention also governs the carrier’s liability for loss, damage and delay. That liability is capped by the weight of the goods, however, so for valuable goods the carrier’s compensation will not cover the value of the shipment and cargo insurance is needed.

How it works in practice

For the books and VAT, the CMR is above all evidence that the goods physically left Slovakia. For an exempt intra-EU supply of goods the supplier must prove transport, and a CMR signed by the consignee is the basic document for this, together with the invoice.

In audits the tax office checks whether the CMR makes sense: whether it matches the invoice in quantity and date, whether the consignee signed it and whether the carrier really exists. A missing or unsigned CMR means the supply is taxed with Slovak VAT.

Who arranges transport and who bears the risk is set by the Incoterms in the contract. Where the customer collects the goods with its own transport, the supplier has to obtain the signed CMR from the customer, which in practice is often the hardest part.

What to watch out for

In chain transactions and triangular trade, the CMR data determine which supply the transport is allocated to. A wrongly stated place of loading or sender can change the whole tax treatment and trigger a duty to register in another country.

Beware of batches of signed CMRs from suspicious carriers. In carousel fraud CMRs are often forged, and a company that did not verify the transport risks losing both the exemption and the deduction. With new customers it pays to check the carrier too.