Sudan ACD certificate

Mandatory since 1 January 2026

Sudan’s Advance Cargo Declaration became mandatory for all inbound maritime cargo on 1 January 2026, following a directive issued by Sudan’s Sea Ports Corporation on 9 November 2025. The system is administered by the SPC in coordination with the Sudan Customs Authority, through the official platform at acdsudan.com.

This is a new requirement. If you shipped to Port Sudan during 2025 without one, nothing was missed — it did not exist. Carrier advisories from Maersk, CMA CGM and others followed through December 2025.

Obtained before loading, endorsed on the final Bill of Lading

The ACD number must be obtained by the shipper, exporter or freight forwarder before the cargo is loaded at origin. It then has to appear on the final Bill of Lading.

A reference sitting in an email but missing from the Bill of Lading does not satisfy the requirement. Where the number is obtained after the B/L has been issued, an amendment request has to go to the carrier — and carriers have been refusing amendments on shipments loaded without a valid reference.

The declaration must be validated no later than five days before the vessel arrives at the Sudanese port of discharge.

Every cargo type, every origin

The ACD applies to all cargo destined for Sudan regardless of country of origin, and regardless of what is being shipped — general cargo, machinery, spare parts, vehicles, containerised or otherwise.

Commercial, business, diplomatic and personal shipments are all covered. There are no category exemptions and no value threshold.

Each Bill of Lading requires its own ACD number. One reference cannot cover several bills, even for a single shipment moving together.

The document set has grown

Worth watching, because Sudan has added requirements since launch rather than settling at the original set.

The core documents are the freighted draft Bill of Lading — rated, showing the freight value — and the commercial invoice. Since launch, two further documents have been made mandatory:

• Certificate of origin
• Packing list

A draft Bill of Lading is sufficient to obtain the reference, so the process can start as soon as the booking is confirmed.

Given that the requirement is barely a year old and has already been amended twice, treat any guidance you read as provisional. We confirm the current document set at the point of application rather than working from a list.

Why Sudan introduced it

Two stated purposes. The first is port planning — advance information about what is arriving and when lets Port Sudan allocate equipment and space rather than reacting on the day.

The second is valuation. Because the declaration is filed against real transport documents shortly after loading, the declared description and value are on record before the vessel sails. That makes undervaluation considerably harder to sustain at clearance.

Penalties

Shipments that fail to comply may face administrative fines, customs holds, cargo rejection or cargo seizure under Sea Ports Corporation and customs regulations.

Cargo seizure is a more serious outcome than most destinations on this list impose, and it reflects how new and how firmly enforced the regime is. The practical risk arrives earlier though — a carrier refusing to amend the Bill of Lading stops the shipment before it reaches Sudan at all.

Sudan is not South Sudan

The distinction matters and the two are regularly confused.

Sudan — capital Khartoum, discharging at Port Sudan on the Red Sea — requires an ACD under the Sea Ports Corporation.

South Sudan — capital Juba, landlocked since independence in 2011 — requires an ECTN, and its cargo commonly moves through Mombasa, Djibouti or Port Sudan itself.

Neither certificate is valid for the other country. Cargo discharged at Port Sudan for onward movement to Juba is a South Sudan shipment by final destination, not a Sudanese one. If your consignee’s address simply says “Sudan”, establish which country before anything is filed.

The port

Port Sudan on the Red Sea is the country’s principal commercial port and handles effectively all of Sudan’s maritime trade. It also serves as one of the transit routes for South Sudan.