Bill of Lading Example

Below is a completed short-form straight bill of lading for a real-shaped LTL shipment: three commodities, one of them hazardous, moving collect from Portland to Salt Lake City. Every block is explained underneath, including the entries most people leave blank.

A completed short-form straight bill of lading. The masthead shows the BOL number and date issued. A reference strip carries the PRO number, collect freight terms, trailer and seal numbers, and freight counted by shipper. Shipper and consignee blocks show full addresses and contacts. Three freight lines list six pallets of cabinet doors at class 85, two crates of countertop slabs at class 70, and one box of UN1263 paint marked in the hazardous materials column. The declared value is $18,500, Section 7 is signed, and three signature blocks sit at the foot. — This is not a mockup — it is the actual output of the generator on this site, rendered from the sample shipment described below.

The shipment behind the example

Cascade Millwork in Portland is sending three things to Redstone Building Supply in Salt Lake City: six pallets of cabinet doors, two crates of engineered stone countertops, and one box of paint. The paint is what makes this worth using as an example — it is a hazardous material, and that single line changes the requirements for the whole document.

The freight moves collect, so the consignee pays. The shipper has signed Section 7, which means the carrier agrees to look only to the consignee for the charges. The declared value is filled in at $18,500. Delivery needs an appointment.

The BOL number here is BOL-20260808-J29F — generated automatically because the shipper did not have their own numbering. Any reference works as long as you can find the shipment by it later. The PRO number, 447-2298104, belongs to the carrier and was written in at pickup from the barcode label the driver applied.

The strip underneath carries the working details a dock actually needs at a glance: freight terms collect, trailer 53119, seal A0092341, freight counted by the shipper. That last entry matters more than it looks — because the shipper counted, a shortage argument later starts from the shipper's count rather than the driver's.

2. Ship from and ship to

Both blocks carry a company name, a street address, city, state and ZIP, a named contact and a direct phone number. The consignee block adds two lines that prevent expensive problems: receiving hours of 0700–1500 and an explicit note that an appointment is required.

A driver arriving at 15:30 to a dock that closed at 15:00 costs somebody a redelivery charge. The information that avoids it costs nothing to write down.

3. Bill freight charges to

On this example the charges go to Redstone's accounts payable address — a PO box in a different part of the city from the receiving dock. That is completely normal and it is exactly why the block exists. Freight invoices sent to a loading dock disappear.

4. The freight description

Three lines, and each one demonstrates something different.

The three freight lines in the example and what each one shows
Line	What it says	Why it is written that way
6 pallets, 144 pieces	Cabinet doors, wood, in cartons on pallets, banded and stretch wrapped. NMFC 79790, class 85, 2,840 lb.	Handling units and pieces are both stated. The description covers the commodity, the packaging and how it is secured — all three matter on a damage claim.
2 crates, 2 pieces	Countertop slabs, engineered stone, crated vertically. NMFC 34000, class 70, 1,160 lb.	"Crated vertically" is an instruction disguised as a description. Stone laid flat breaks.
1 box, 4 pieces, HM	UN1263, Paint, 3, PG II, 4 × 5 gallon pails in fiberboard box. NMFC 149980, class 70, 190 lb.	The X in the HM column identifies the line as regulated. The description follows the required sequence: identification number, proper shipping name, hazard class, packing group.

The totals row reads 9 handling units, 150 pieces, 4,190 pounds. Those figures are what the carrier rates and what the consignee counts against, and they should match what is physically on the dock. If the document says nine and there are eight, that gets caught at pickup rather than three days later at a distribution center.

The hazmat line is doing more work than it looks

One line of regulated material brings the whole shipping paper under the rules in 49 CFR Part 172. The entry has to be distinguishable from the non-regulated lines, described in the required sequence, and accompanied by a 24-hour emergency response telephone number that a knowledgeable person answers. A number that rings out to voicemail does not satisfy the requirement. The shipper certification at the foot of the page is a regulatory certification, not a formality.

5. Declared value, COD and Section 7

This is the block most examples online leave empty, and the one worth studying.

The declared value reads $18,500, with $2.50 per pound stated alongside it. Left blank, the carrier's tariff limitation of liability would apply instead — a released value measured in dollars per pound that has nothing to do with what cabinet doors and stone countertops cost. On 4,190 pounds of freight the gap between a tariff cap and the real value is not small.

Section 7 is marked yes. On a collect shipment that means the carrier has agreed to look only to the consignee for the freight charges. Left unsigned, the shipper stays on the hook if the consignee does not pay. Small box, real money.

6. Special instructions

"Liftgate required at delivery. Call 30 minutes ahead. Do not double stack — banded units only."

Three instructions, each of which would otherwise become a dispute. The liftgate is an accessorial the carrier will charge for; asking for it here means it was agreed rather than sprung. The call ahead is how the appointment survives contact with traffic. The stacking note is the one that prevents a claim: freight that arrives crushed because it was double stacked, with no instruction on the document, is an argument the shipper loses.

7. The three signature blocks

Shipper certification on the left, carrier receipt in the middle, consignee delivery receipt on the right. Three signatures, three different moments and three different meanings — the shipper certifying the description before pickup, the carrier acknowledging receipt in apparent good order, and the consignee recording what actually arrived.

Note the wording under the consignee block: exceptions get noted before signing. That instruction is printed there deliberately, because a clean signature at delivery is the single most common reason a freight claim fails.

The same shipment, filled in badly

It is worth seeing what the identical load looks like when somebody fills the form in at speed. Every one of these appears on real bills of lading every day, and each has a cost attached.

Common shortcuts on a bill of lading and what each one costs
What gets written	What it should say	What it costs
Description: "Millwork"	"Cabinet doors, wood, in cartons on pallets, banded and stretch wrapped"	An inspection, a reclassification, and a weak position on any damage claim.
Class and NMFC left blank	NMFC 79790, class 85	The carrier classifies it for you, and their determination is the one on the invoice.
Weight: "approx 4200"	4,190 lb actual gross	A reweigh, a weight and inspection certificate, and an adjusted bill with a fee.
Declared value: blank	$18,500	The tariff's released value per pound caps the claim, whatever the freight was worth.
Paint listed as "1 box, misc"	X in the HM column, "UN1263, Paint, 3, PG II", emergency number on the paper	A regulatory violation rather than a billing one, and a driver who is right to refuse the load.
Special instructions: blank	Liftgate, call ahead, do not double stack	An accessorial you did not authorise, a missed appointment, and crushed freight nobody was told to protect.

None of it takes long to get right. The difference between the good version and the bad version of this document is about four minutes at a desk, and the gap between the two outcomes is measured in hundreds or thousands of dollars.

What changes on the other BOL types

The example above is a short-form straight bill of lading, which covers most domestic truck freight. The other layouts change less than the number of templates online would suggest.

Long form. Same data, with the conditions of carriage printed on the face instead of incorporated by reference, plus an emergency response block for hazmat. It runs to two pages.
VICS. Adds a customer order block above the freight description listing each purchase order with its package count, weight and whether it moved on a pallet or a slip sheet. Retail distribution centers reconcile against purchase orders rather than pallets.
Order bill of lading. The consignee line reads "to the order of" rather than a company name, and the document becomes negotiable — an original has to be surrendered before the freight is released.
House bill of lading. A different animal: ocean and air forwarding, with a notify party, four routing places, vessel and voyage, container and seal, and measurement in cubic meters.

Each is covered on its own page — the template page carries short, long and VICS layouts, and the straight BOL page works through the negotiable distinction in detail.

Making your own

The fastest way to produce a document that looks like the one above is to fill in the free bill of lading generator and download the PDF — the example on this page came straight out of it. If you would rather understand each box before you fill it, the annotated walkthrough of all fifteen fields takes fifteen numbered fields in order and flags the four that decide whether a claim is paid.