An FHL message is the electronic house manifest. When a forwarder consolidates several customers’ shipments under one master air waybill, the airline’s own record, the FWB, only describes the master: forwarder to forwarder, total pieces, total weight. The FHL is the message that opens the box and says which house air waybills are inside, and who is really shipping to whom.
IATA’s Cargo-IMP standard names the message the Consolidation List. Carriers and customs authorities usually call it the house manifest, which is the clearer description of what it does. Its Cargo-XML counterpart is XFHL. If you are new to the paper side, what a cargo manifest is covers the documents behind it.
What an FHL contains
An FHL is built from short coded lines, each starting with a three-letter tag. The main ones:
- MBI (master bill information): the master air waybill number, its origin and destination, and the master’s total pieces and weight.
- HBS (house bill summary): the house air waybill number, its origin and destination, pieces, weight, the shipper’s load-and-count figure and a short goods description.
- TXT: a fuller free-text description of the goods.
- HTS: harmonised tariff codes for the goods.
- OCI (other customs information): coded customs details, such as a party’s tax or registration identifier.
- SHP and CNE: the house’s real shipper and consignee, with name, street address, city, country and postal code.
- CVD: the charge declarations, such as currency and prepaid or collect.
The message comes in two shapes. A short checklist form gives the master line and one HBS summary line per house, which is enough to show what the consolidation holds. The detail form describes one house in full, with its shipper, consignee, description and tariff codes, and is the form customs filings depend on.
# master 999-12345675 HKG → JFK, 5 pieces, 620 kg in total FHL/5 MBI/999-12345675HKGJFK/T5K620 HBS/CF0001842/HKGJFK/3/K420/3/COMPUTER PARTS TXT/MEMORY MODULES AND SSD DRIVES HTS/847330 SHP NAM/NORTHWIND COMPONENTS LTD ADR/12 HARBOUR ROAD LOC/HONG KONG /HK CNE NAM/CONTOSO ELECTRONICS INC ADR/100 MAIN STREET LOC/JAMAICA/NY /US/11432 CVD/USD/PP/NVD/NCV/XXX # 3 of the master's 5 pieces; a second house has the rest
Who sends it, and when
The forwarder that built the consolidation sends the FHL, either directly to the carrier or through the airline’s system or a cargo community platform. It goes out before the cargo is tendered to the airline, usually alongside the FWB for the master. The carrier, the forwarder or another authorised filer then uses the house data in the advance customs filing for the destination country.
A direct shipment, one shipper on one master air waybill with no houses, needs no FHL at all. The message only exists because consolidation hides the real parties behind the forwarder.
With , you can capture and validate the master air waybill and output the FWB that travels alongside the FHL; house bill capture, with FHL output planned, is in development.
Start hereWhy customs depends on the FHL
Customs risk assessment is about people and goods, and on a consolidation both live at the house level. US ACAS asks for house-level data before cargo is loaded, including pieces, weight, a precise goods description and the full shipper and consignee name and address, with the house air waybill number mandatory. The EU’s ICS2 likewise wants house-level data before loading for air cargo bound for the EU, and forwarders can file it themselves or pass it through the carrier. In both cases the FHL, or the same data sent another way, is where that information comes from.
FHL vs FZB
The two messages are easy to mix up. The FHL is the manifest: the list of houses under a master. The FZB is the house waybill message, carrying one house air waybill’s own data, much as the FWB carries the master’s. In Cargo-XML they become XFHL (house manifest) and XFZB (house waybill). In practice many carriers take full house detail through the FHL detail form, so which one a partner wants is worth confirming up front.
Versions
FHL/4 is widely used and FHL/5 is the newer revision, used in US CBP’s current ACAS guidance. As with the FWB versions, the receiver decides which one it accepts.
Why FHL messages get rejected
Most rejections and holds come down to the house data itself, not the message syntax:
- Missing parties. No shipper or consignee name, an incomplete address, or a missing country code.
- Vague descriptions. “Spare parts” or “general cargo” instead of what the goods actually are.
- Bad house numbers. US CBP, for example, rejects a house number longer than 12 characters or containing invalid characters.
- Bad quantities. Zero or non-numeric pieces or weight.
- Houses that don’t match the master. House pieces and weights should be consistent with the master’s totals on the FWB; when they aren’t, someone has to find out which side is wrong.
- Missing customs identifiers. For the EU, tariff codes and party identifiers such as the consignee’s EORI number are frequent gaps.
Every one of those problems starts upstream, when the house air waybill is keyed or read. That is the same lesson as on the master side: validate the data at capture, and the message built from it is clean. AWBGuru does that today for the master with AWB data capture and FWB output.