Free Export Shipment Proforma Invoice Template & Generator
An export proforma is the priced description of a shipment that has not moved yet, written so the buyer's bank, your forwarder and the destination broker can all work from one page. It separates the goods value from export crating and international carriage, names the consignee apart from the buyer of record, states country of origin per line, and repeats the crate count, gross and net weight and shipping marks that the packing list will carry.
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| Description | Qty | Rate | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|
| Export goods | 120 | $38.00 | $4,560.00 |
| Export packing | 1 | $420.00 | $420.00 |
| International freight estimate | 1 | $980.00 | $980.00 |
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Use-case checklist
What to include in a export shipment proforma invoice
An export shipment is handed off three or four times before it lands, and everyone who touches it works from paper rather than from your conversation with the buyer. If the consignee line only repeats the buyer, the agent at destination has nobody to release the cargo to. If crating and carriage are folded into the unit price, the goods value is no longer visible to anyone who needs it, and that is tedious to unwind once the cargo has moved. And if the marks, crate count and weights here do not match the packing list, the buyer's broker has to reconcile two sets of numbers before clearance starts, while the shipment sits accruing storage at the airport.
- seller, buyer, and consignee
- goods, quantity, value, and currency
- country of origin and product codes when known
- shipping method, Incoterm, and destination
- validity, payment terms, and proforma disclaimer
Example starting lines
| Description | Qty | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Export goods | 120 | $38 |
| Export packing | 1 | $420 |
| International freight estimate | 1 | $980 |
Complete it cleanly
Describe seller, buyer, consignee, goods, quantity, value, currency, country of origin, Incoterm, shipping method, validity, and payment terms. Confirm destination-specific customs requirements with the carrier or trade adviser.
How to make an export shipment proforma invoice in 6 steps
Open the proforma invoice generator
Start from this page so the proforma invoice opens with fields and sample lines already set up for US exporters and international sellers. No account is needed to create or preview.
Enter both parties
Add your business name, address and contact details, then the customer name and address exactly as they should appear on the record.
Add the export shipment lines
Replace each sample line with the real work or goods. Make sure the document shows seller, buyer, and consignee, goods, quantity, value, and currency, country of origin and product codes when known.
Check the figures
Totals calculate as you type. Confirm quantities, rates, any tax line and the final total against your own records before you send anything.
Set the reference and dates
Give the proforma invoice a unique number and the correct date so it can be traced later and matched to related documents.
Review and download the PDF
Describe seller, buyer, consignee, goods, quantity, value, currency, country of origin, Incoterm, shipping method, validity, and payment terms. Confirm destination-specific customs requirements with the carrier or trade adviser. Preview is free; a PDF download costs $4.99, or is included with Unlimited.
Worked example
A four-crate dental equipment order quoted CPT Santiago
Ridgeline Dental Instruments LLC in Fort Collins, CO issues proforma PFI-2026-0338 on September 3, 2026 to Clinica Dental Austral SpA in Santiago, Chile, with the forwarder TransAndes Cargo Ltda named as consignee. The buyer's bank needs the document to release the outbound wire before Ridgeline books the flight.
- 12 operatory delivery units at $1,845.00 each, country of origin USA
- $22,140.00
- 40 handpiece sterilization cassettes at $128.50 each, country of origin USA
- $5,140.00
- Goods subtotal, the value shown for the goods themselves
- $27,280.00
- Export crating, four heat-treated wood crates, quoted as a flat lot
- $1,120.00
- FCA Denver, CO subtotal, before international carriage
- $28,400.00
- Carriage booked by Ridgeline under CPT, air freight Denver (DEN) to Santiago (SCL)
- $3,480.00
- CPT Santiago, Chile (Incoterms 2020), total payable to Ridgeline in USD
- $31,880.00
- Shipment particulars repeated on the packing list and air waybill
- 4 crates, 412 kg gross / 358 kg net, marks RDI/AUS-0338/1-4
- Buyer of record and consignee, listed as separate parties
- Buyer: Clinica Dental Austral SpA / Consignee: TransAndes Cargo Ltda, Santiago
- Memo, not payable to Ridgeline: Chilean import duty, tax and clearing charges, allocated to the buyer by this quote (illustrative, confirm with your broker)
- Not known to the seller
The field most often left blank is the consignee. The second trap is the total: as quoted here it covers the goods, the crating and the carriage only, so a buyer who reads $31,880.00 as their whole landed cost will argue about it at the airport. What each Incoterm allocates, and what the destination assesses on arrival, is set by the published Incoterms 2020 text and by Chilean rules rather than by this page, so confirm both with your forwarder and broker. Parties and figures here are invented.
When this document is the right choice
Use this proforma invoice to show an expected transaction before a final invoice exists. A proforma invoice is a preliminary commercial document, not a final tax invoice or proof that payment is due. Replace it with the final invoice when the transaction is confirmed.
Frequently asked questions
Does this proforma travel with the cargo, or does the commercial invoice do that?
The commercial invoice travels. This document does its work earlier, in the week before the booking: it is what the buyer's bank sees when the outbound wire is approved and what your forwarder quotes against. Once the crates are weighed and the air waybill is cut, you issue a commercial invoice showing what actually shipped, and that is the document matched to the packing list at destination. Keep the same reference number on both so the two files reconcile.
Do I have to make an electronic export filing for this shipment?
That is a question for your forwarder, not for a template. Whether a filing is required, and who makes it, depends on the destination, the commodity and the declared value, and forwarders handle this daily for the lanes they run. What you can do here is make sure the proforma already carries the fields they will ask you for: full legal parties, country of origin per line, the goods value apart from freight, weights and the commodity description.
The buyer wants the price to include delivery to their clinic door. Can I just add a line?
Adding a line changes the deal, not just the total. Two things differ between terms, and a freight line cannot express either: how far the seller's carriage cost runs, and the point at which risk passes to the buyer. Under CPT those are deliberately not the same point, the seller pays carriage to the named place while risk is treated as passing earlier, when the goods are handed to the first carrier. Door delivery also means somebody clears the goods at destination and pays whatever is assessed there. Read the rule for the term you are considering in the published Incoterms 2020 text, price it as that term with your forwarder, and do not bolt door delivery onto a CPT quote.
Two of my components are imported and assembled here. What country of origin do I put?
Origin is stated per line item rather than per shipment, so a proforma with mixed lines should show mixed origins. Whether assembly in the United States changes the origin of a finished unit is a classification question, and the answer turns on rules your customs broker applies, not on where the box was taped shut. Ask your broker to confirm the origin for each line before you print it, because the buyer's broker will rely on it at destination.
The buyer is asking me to show a lower value on the document so their import charges come down.
Decline, in writing, and keep the request in the file. The value on an export proforma, and on the commercial invoice that follows it, is the price the buyer is actually paying, and everyone downstream is working from that one number: the buyer's bank releasing the wire, your forwarder, the broker at destination. Understating it puts the shipment and both companies at risk, and what a declaration has to contain is set by the destination's customs authority and by the export rules you file under, not by an agreement between the two of you, so put the question to your customs broker rather than settling it in an email. If the buyer's real problem is landed cost, the honest levers are commercial: quote a different term, revisit the unit price, or split the order across two shipments.
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