The paperwork is the shipment.
Customs delay is one of the most common causes of temperature excursion, and it is almost always a documentation problem rather than a transport one. Missing or wrong paperwork triggers secondary inspection, where an officer may open the packaging and remove the temperature monitor — and a gap in the monitoring record is treated as an excursion whether or not the material ever left range.
Dangerous goods classification and packing
- UN3373 Biological Substance, Category B — IATA Packing Instruction 650
- Triple packaging: leakproof primary, absorbent secondary, rigid outer with a minimum 100 × 100 mm face
- 95 kPa pressure differential and 1.2 m drop test packaging
- Correct diamond marking at 50 mm minimum with 6 mm minimum lettering
- Exempt Human Specimen and Exempt Animal Specimen classification and edge marking
- UN3245 genetically modified organisms and micro-organisms
Refrigerants and shippers
- Dry ice under UN1845 / Packing Instruction 954, vented — never hermetically sealed
- Net dry ice weight declared on the outer packaging
- Per-carrier and per-lane dry ice limits checked before booking, not after
- Liquid nitrogen dry vapour shippers for cryogenic lanes
- Shipper pre-conditioning and coolant loading matched to the actual transit time, including the customs allowance
- Temperature data logger deployed inside the shipment and the file returned to you
Customs, permits and trade
- Commercial invoice preparation with defensible declared values — a research sample declared at zero triggers a hold
- HS classification, typically heading 3002 for blood, antisera, vaccines, cultures and cell cultures
- CDC import permit support for infectious agents under 42 CFR 71.54
- USDA APHIS permit support — allow four to six weeks, longer for BSL-3
- Material Transfer Agreement and Nagoya Protocol documentation travelling with the material
- Importer and Exporter of Record support and customs broker coordination
- Export control screening before booking
What we will not do
We do not currently offer Category A infectious substance shipping under UN2814 or UN2900. That requires UN type-approved, design-type-tested Class 6.2 packaging on hand and current competency-assessed staff, and we will not advertise a capability we would have to improvise. If you need Category A, tell us and we will point you at someone who genuinely does it.
Tell us what you need to move, and at what temperature.
Send us the materials, the temperatures and the destinations. We will come back with a scope and a price — not a discovery call.