Is freight to China cheaper by sea or by rail?

Sea freight is usually cheaper per unit but slower (28–35 days); rail via the China Railway Express is faster (12–21 days) and cheaper than air, making it a middle option for time-sensitive but not urgent cargo.

Can you deliver door-to-door for Americas & Canada shipments?

Yes. We book the ocean or air leg and handle the road delivery on both the European and destination side, so you get one quote for the full door-to-door chain.

What's the main bottleneck on the Middle Corridor?

The Caspian Sea crossing between Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan, since it depends on port and vessel capacity at Aktau, Kuryk and the Azerbaijani side.

What Incoterm should I use for a multimodal shipment?

It depends on how much of the journey you want to arrange yourself versus leave to us. We talk this through at quotation stage rather than assume one default, since the right choice changes who's responsible for transit risk and cost at each handover.

Road Freight

Every other page in our Road Freight section covers a European country reachable by a single truck driving the whole way. This one doesn't work like that. China, the Americas, the Caucasus and Central Asia aren't a driving distance from Poland, Germany, Spain or the UK, they're a sea or rail leg first, with road transport handling the European end of the journey. What we offer on these lanes is freight forwarding: we plan the full chain, book the sea or rail capacity, clear customs at each handover, and run the truck for the first or last mile in Europe.

Why these destinations are different from a country page

A Road Freight to Portugal or Slovenia page is about one truck, one CMR consignment note, one border. Forwarding to these regions means coordinating several transport modes and several sets of paperwork, a bill of lading or rail waybill for the main leg, a CMR for the European road leg, and an Incoterm that defines exactly where our responsibility (and the cost) shifts from us to you. Getting the Incoterm right at quotation stage avoids a lot of confusion later about who's paying for what, and where.

China

Ocean freight into a European port (Rotterdam, Hamburg, Gdynia) followed by road delivery to the final destination is still the default for most China-Europe volume, but rail is a real and growing alternative. Container trains on the China Railway Express network, running fixed timetables from hubs like Chongqing, Chengdu and Xi'an to European terminals, take roughly 12–21 days depending on the route, against 28–35 days by sea. It's typically faster than sea freight and cheaper than air, which makes it worth comparing for cargo that's time-sensitive but not urgent.

See our China freight page →

Turkey

Turkey sits half by road and half by forwarding logic: freight moves overland the whole way, but crosses the EU's external customs border, so it needs the same A.TR/EUR.1/T1 documentation package as a genuine non-EU destination, not the free-circulation paperwork of an EU country run.

See our Turkey freight page →

Caucasus

Georgia and Azerbaijan sit on the Middle Corridor (the Trans-Caspian International Transport Route), so freight here can move by a mix of rail, a short sea crossing of the Caspian, and road, or, for shipments originating in or transiting Turkey, mostly by road with a ferry or rail crossing where needed. The Baku-Tbilisi-Kars railway, upgraded in 2024, is a key piece of this route and specifically avoids transit through Russia or the Eurasian Economic Union's customs procedures.

See our Caucasus freight page →

Central Asia

Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and their neighbours are landlocked, so freight typically arrives by rail via the Middle Corridor or by a combined sea-and-rail routing via Caspian ports like Aktau or Kuryk, before the last stretch runs by road. Transit times are longer than intra-European freight and depend heavily on Caspian Sea crossing capacity, which is the main bottleneck on this corridor.

See our Central Asia freight page →

Americas & Canada

There's no road or rail option here, everything moves by sea or air, with road freight picking up only once the container or air cargo lands in Europe or at the destination port in North or South America. The planning work is almost entirely about container booking, transit time, and matching the right Incoterm to who arranges the ocean leg.

See our Americas & Canada freight page →

How we quote these lanes

Because more than one mode and more than one border are involved, we ask for a bit more up front than on a European country page: the Incoterm you want to work to, whether you need door-to-door or port-to-port, and any customs documents already in hand (commercial invoice, packing list, certificates of origin where relevant). From there we put together the sea/rail leg, the European road leg, and the customs clearance at each end, and give you one quote covering the whole chain rather than a patchwork of separate costs to add up yourself.