How to track a shipping container
The container is a kind of transportation equipment, which can be used repeatedly for a long time. It is more suitable for one or more transportation methods, and the goods in the box do not need to be reloaded during transshipment; Switching to another shipping method, with increasing use of containers
First of all, with the rapid development of marine engineering, the sea-going containers as supporting equipment have also been rapidly developed, and the sea-going containers have gradually evolved from standard containers. Sea container refers to a mobile unit that has the ability to transport and operate in high wave sea areas and whose total mass does not exceed. This unit is frequently used for the transportation and hoisting of goods or equipment between fixed or floating equipment and ships at sea.
The application of container intelligent tracking technology can not only improve the transparency of container transportation supervision, reduce the empty load rate, and realize the optimization of resource allocation, but also help customers to grasp more container transportation status information, thereby accelerating the speed of container circulation and shortening the empty container residence time.
Container information management technology is based on radio frequency identification technology. It can use electronic tags as the carrier to embed the basic information of containers into electronic tags. Transmitted to the container electronic label system, the basic information, safety status information and circulation information of the relevant goods can be easily read through the reader, so as to realize the rapid identification of the container and improve the speed of container turnover and customs clearance at ports and stations

Container Tracking Guidelines
- If you know which shipping company the container belongs to, you can directly go to the official website of the shipping company and use the container number to track it.
- If you don’t know which company it belongs to, you can use the container owner code (that is, the first 4 letters) to check the owner’s information on the official website of the International Container Bureau. Generally, you will find the official website URL.
- If it is a container of the shipping company, the current location information of the container can be found directly.
- If it is from a container leasing company, what you find out should be the leased information. You can find out which shipping company rented the container based on the leasing information, and then go to the website of the shipping company to track and inquire
ifyou need tracking container, you can go to https://www.track-trace.com/
How to track container information
If the container owner company is a shipping company, then on the cargo tracking page of the official website of the container owner company, you can choose the container tracking method to query the current trajectory of the container.
Box number: There is an 11-digit number on the container body, the first four are letters called headers, and the last seven are numbers. This number is unique. Regarding the 4 English letters, the first 3 letters are the code of the container owner (shipping company, container leasing company). For example, COSCO is CBH, China Shipping CCL, Hongxin is TGH, and U stands for container.
The fourth English letter of any container is U, and the number behind it is the serial number of the container. Usually, containers starting with 1 and 9 are special containers, those starting with numbers 4, 7, and 8 are large cabinets, and those starting with 2 and 3 are small cabinets. The last number is the identification number of the container.

How to track the location of the container
After you have the bill of lading number and container number, you only need to know which shipping company it is.
Log in to the shipping company’s website, there will be a search bar at a conspicuous position on the website (usually at the top of the page), and there will be options in front, you can choose to search by bill of lading number or container number, and then you can find relevant cargo information
The following are the top 20 shipping company website links
CODE | SCAC CODE | Company Name | Official Website | Container Tracking |
---|---|---|---|---|
EMC | EGLV | Evergreen International Corp. | Click to visit | EMC tracking |
YML | YMLU | Yang Ming Marine Transport Corporation | Click to visit | YML tracking |
COSCO | COSU | CSOCO Container Lines Co.,Ltd. | Click to visit | COSCO tracking |
CMA | CMDU | CMA CGM Shipping Co.,Ltd. | Click to visit | CMA tracking |
HPL | HLCU | Hapag-Lloyd | Click to visit | HPL tracking |
APL | APLU | American President Lines | Click to visit | APL tracking |
MSC | MSCU | Mediterranean Shipping Company | Click to visit | MSC tracking |
KMTC | KMTU | Korea Marine Transport Co., Ltd | Click to visit | KMTC tracking |
FESCO | FESO | Far East State Shipping Company | Click to visit | FESCO tracking |
ZIM | ZIMU | ZIM Integrated Shipping Ltd | Click to visit | ZIM tracking |
MATSON | MATS | Matson Intermodal System, Inc. | Click to visit | MATSON tracking |
HAM-SUD | SUDU | Hamburg Sudamerikanische Dampfschifffahrts-gesells | Click to visit | HAM-SUD tracking |
OOCL | OOLU | Orient Overseas Container Line | Click to visit | OOCL tracking |
TSL | TSQD | T.S. Lines | Click to visit | TSL tracking |
WHL | 22AA | Wan Hai Lines Ltd. | Click to visit | WHL tracking |
PIL | PCIU | Pacific International Lines | Click to visit | PIL tracking |
RCL | REGU | Regional Container Lines | Click to visit | RCL tracking |
MSK | MAEU | Maersk Line | Click to visit | MSK tracking |
ONE | ONEY | Ocean Network Express | Click to visit | ONE tracking |
HMM | HDMU | Hyundai Merchant Marine | Click to visit | HMM tracking |
How to track the container after knowing the container number
Let’s break down the container number. The first four digits are all English letters, the first three digits are the registration code, the fourth digit is the type description, there are three main types, U means regular container, J means detachable container, Z Indicates the trailer box.
registration code
The middle is the box registration code, which consists of six digits. If there are less than six digits, fill them with 0, just like if there are only 005678 box numbers, it means that there are only 5678 box owners.
check code
The tail is a check code, which is a separate number, which will be circled on the box to show the difference. It needs to calculate the information in the front and middle through the check rules to get the number.
Case number
0-9 in the box number represents itself, and the letters A-Z should correspond to 10-38 numbers, because the double-identical numbers such as 11, 22, and 33 are not extracted, and need to be calculated and sorted after they are proposed
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