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Billing a Third-Party

Some carriers support billing shipping costs to a third party (or the recipient), this feature is especially useful for 3PLs. To see if the carrier supports it, check the advanced options listed when Listing your Carriers.

To use Third Party Billing, you must include these advanced options:

  • bill_to_account
  • bill_to_country_code
  • bill_to_party (which should be set to "third_party")
  • bill_to_postal_code

Example

POST /v1/labels

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POST /v1/labels HTTP/1.1
Host: api.shipengine.com
API-Key: __YOUR_API_KEY_HERE__
Content-Type: application/json
{
  "shipment": {
    "service_code": "ups_ground",
    "ship_to": {
      "name": "Amanda Miller",
      "phone": "555-555-5555",
      "address_line1": "525 S Winchester Blvd",
      "city_locality": "San Jose",
      "state_province": "CA",
      "postal_code": "95128",
      "country_code": "US",
      "address_residential_indicator": "yes"
    },
    "ship_from": {
      "company_name": "Example Corp.",
      "name": "John Doe",
      "phone": "111-111-1111",
      "address_line1": "4009 Marathon Blvd",
      "address_line2": "Suite 300",
      "city_locality": "Austin",
      "state_province": "TX",
      "postal_code": "78756",
      "country_code": "US",
      "address_residential_indicator": "no"
    },
    "packages": [
      {
        "weight": {
          "value": 1.0,
          "unit": "ounce"
        }
      }
    ],
    "advanced_options": {
      "bill_to_account": "123456789",
      "bill_to_country_code": "US",
      "bill_to_party": "third_party",
      "bill_to_postal_code": "78756"
    }
  }
}

Notice the advanced_options here:

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{
  "advanced_options": {
    "bill_to_account": "123456789",
    "bill_to_country_code": "US",
    "bill_to_party": "third_party",
    "bill_to_postal_code": "78756"
}
}