Freight forwarders handle logistics of shipping goods from one international destination to another.
Considering the regulatory minefield that relates to the transport of lithium batteries, has anybody used a freight forwarder to ship lithium batteries internationally (usually by sea)?
Which freight forwarders are good to deal with? Which ones are the most cost effective, and which ones should we stay away from?
Where are you from and where are you looking to source your batteries from?
Looking at getting some sent from the US to Australia.
Not sure if it is even feasible, but if you don’t ask the question you won’t know.
Anything shipped USA to Aus costs a fucking fortune. Its fucked up.
Yesterday I created a shipment on UPS and they had an option for lithium batteries. Website didnt question anything on watthours or anything. None of the strict rules we saw a couple years agp
They do have rules you have to follow, they just assume you read them. When you tick that box they only allow you to select ground shipments. And when I tried shipping with them, they blocked my order, and I had to get in touch with them. They responded a week later saying this:
I had already shipped with another company by that time.
Ah ok
Welcome to my fucking world, shipping batteries that is to say individual cells or complete batteries over 20wh comes with a whole host of regulatory requirements for both packing and shipping documentation. DHLs probably the most painless but you’ll need an account, FedEx and UPS have their own resources on DG shipping (FedEx’s is FX18 compliant) But yeah if your shipping internationally by air prepare for yo shit to get pulled and audited if you flag it under the batteries option and didn’t file any edocs/DG declaration with the CI.
But when I read your post, the first thing I do is click your profile to see where you are, to see from which perspective you are writing.
But, your profile is missing the country.
Not everything you express is defined by the words you’ve typed…
This is partially true, IATA is actually an international organization that is part of the UNs standards and regulatory arm but domestically regulations might differ greatly in this case I am based in the US, but you’ll find shipping anything other than ground will fall under these general guidelines when shipping sea or air freight cargo.
So has anyone shipped batteries internationally by sea? I know its likely take weeks, as opposed to days.
Who did you use?
Just shipped a battery from U.K. to Spain by ups
Not sure how they will send but I ticked the it contains a lithium battery option
Hopefully it will get there soon
Did you stick a UN 3481 to it? 
Nope only just stuck on a shipping label
Yep so got delivered today
Was a deck with a battery in
I just stuck on the label I ordered online
When I was online I wrote it contains a lithium battery secured in device
It was a parcel from U.K. to spain
You NEED a UN3481 label on the outside of your package, when you ship Li-Ion batteries built into a board for example. (If they coincidentally open it and find out, that it contains batteries, you’re pretty fucked 
) The fines are high…
You’re right, but I don’t want people to fuck up their existence. You know, what I mean?
I’m too kind 
Just realized these guys had an office in Sydney. They quoted me around 150€ just freight from “Le Havre” in France to Tahiti, for a box of (I think it was) 200 cells. Then, unloading and storage and custom made it too expensive for me.
Anyways you could ask them for a quote.
Edit. They can only ship batteries by sea.
Oh and they also have offices in Los Angeles and Miami.
