Freight & Shipping
Door-to-Door Delivery & DAP Explained
‘Door to door’ sounds simple, but exactly where the seller’s responsibility ends and yours begins depends on the terms. The Incoterm DAP is where most of that plays out. Here’s what door-to-door really means.
What door-to-door delivery means
Door-to-door is a freight service where your provider manages the whole journey — collection at origin, main-leg transport, and final delivery to the destination address — as a single, coordinated move. You hand over the cargo at one end and receive it at the other, with the logistics in between handled for you.
Where DAP fits in
DAP — Delivered At Place — is the Incoterm that usually underpins a door-to-door arrangement. Under DAP the seller arranges and pays for transport all the way to the named destination and carries the risk until the goods arrive there, ready for unloading.
Who clears customs and pays duty under DAP
This is the catch importers must understand: under DAP the buyer is responsible for import clearance and for paying duty and VAT, even though the seller delivers to the door. So ‘door to door’ on DAP terms still leaves the clearance and the tax bill with you — which is why having a clearing agent lined up matters.
Who pays what
DAP at a glance
Under DAP (Delivered At Place):
• Seller arranges & pays transport to your address
• Seller carries risk until arrival
• Buyer handles import clearance and pays duty & VAT
Want the seller to pay duties too? That’s DDP, not DAP.
DAP vs DDP
If you want the seller to handle the duties as well, that’s DDP (Delivered Duty Paid), not DAP. The difference is exactly who clears and pays import duty and VAT. Confusing the two is a common cause of cargo stuck at the border with no one having arranged clearance.
Getting a true door-to-door service
A genuine door-to-door provider coordinates freight, clearance and final delivery so nothing falls through the gap between legs. That’s how we run it: we collect, ship, clear and deliver — and tell you up front exactly which costs sit where on your terms.
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Road Freight
Reliable domestic and regional road transport — FTL and LTL — with tracking and delivery across South Africa.
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