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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 third-party billing, 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 Request

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 shown here as they appear in the request above:

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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"
}
}