Cross-Border Freight.
Cleared Before It Arrives.
Your freight crosses with its paperwork already accepted: CTPAT-certified carriers, customs entries pre-filed and broker-confirmed, and a bilingual specialist watching both sides of the line. Mexico and Canada, door to door, one contact.
Quote Your Cross-Border Shipment
What is cross-border freight shipping?
Cross-border freight is any shipment that crosses the line between the United States, Mexico, or Canada, and it lives or dies on paperwork. Every load needs a commercial invoice, a bill of lading, and a customs entry filed by a licensed broker before it can cross. Mexico adds a pedimento and a Carta Porte. Canada adds an ACI eManifest and a CARM-registered importer. Miss one line on one document and a $200,000 load parks at the bridge until somebody fixes it.
AFX Logistics runs the whole sequence as one move: the US linehaul, the customs clearance with your broker, the crossing itself, and the final delivery in Mexico or Canada. Our cross-border carriers are CTPAT certified, so loads ride FAST lanes with fewer inspections. Documents are audited and filed before the truck reaches the border, and a bilingual ops desk tracks the load on both sides, so the border becomes a milestone in your timeline instead of the place where timelines go to die.
Cross-border with AFX is the right call when:
- ✓You ship to or from Mexico or Canada and want one party owning the whole move
- ✓Nearshoring or maquiladora volume is pulling your supply chain south
- ✓JIT automotive or manufacturing schedules cannot absorb a missed crossing
- ✓You do not have a customs broker yet, or you want yours coordinated for you
- ✓A bounced entry or a surprise border storage bill has burned you before
Two borders. Twelve doors. One right answer.
Where your freight crosses matters as much as how: Laredo moves more trade than any gateway in America, produce wants Pharr, Juárez maquilas want El Paso, and a Toronto load from Chicago often clears faster over the Blue Water Bridge than through Detroit. Pick a border and a port of entry, and the navigator returns what crosses there, the anchor lanes and their door-to-door times, and the routing logic we apply when we quote your freight.
Border Gateway Navigator
Pick a port of entry. See what crosses there, how fast, and why it matters to your lane.
Laredo, TX ⇄ Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas. The number one trade gateway in the United States, in any mode, anywhere. Laredo feeds Monterrey, Saltillo, and the Bajío up the I-35 corridor, and if your Mexico program only crosses in one place, it probably crosses here.
Volumes and rankings reflect BTS transborder and port authority data, 2024 to 2025. Crossing times assume CTPAT carriers with entries pre-filed, which is how we run.
- Commercial invoiceShipper
- Packing listShipper
- Bill of ladingAFX + carrier
- USMCA certificationShipper, we template it
- ACE / ACI eManifestCarrier, we verify
- PAPS / PARS pre-clearanceAFX + broker
- Pedimento (Mexico)Agente aduanal
- Carta Porte (Mexico)Mexican carrier
- Dallas to Monterrey1 to 2 days
- Chicago to Toronto1 to 2 days
- Detroit to TorontoSame day
- Houston to Mexico City3 to 4 days
- Los Angeles to TijuanaSame day
- New York to Montreal1 day
- Chicago to Querétaro3 to 4 days
- Seattle to VancouverSame day
Three Ways a Crossing Goes Sideways
The border does not punish freight. It punishes loose paperwork and shared responsibility. We engineered the process around both.
The Paperwork Bounce.
Most border delays are not inspections, they are clerical: an invoice that mismatches the entry, a missing USMCA certificate, an HTS code one digit off. We audit every document against the entry before the truck leaves your dock, so the broker clears it the first time.
The Hand-Off Nobody Owns.
A southbound load can touch a US carrier, a border drayman, a bonded yard, and a Mexican linehaul carrier. When four parties each own a quarter of the move, the trailer sits and the blame circulates. We contract and dispatch every leg, so one team owns it door to door.
The Dark Side of the Bridge.
Plenty of brokers track beautifully right to the border, then go quiet until the POD appears. Your freight spends two days in another country with no eyes on it. Our GPS and milestone feed runs on both sides of the line, in both languages, so Monterrey is as visible as Memphis.
Built to Scale.
Proven to Deliver.
Dock to Door, Across the Line
Quote It
Lane, freight, and direction. We price the move as one number: linehaul, border drayage, and coordination, with broker fees itemized instead of buried.
Paper It
We build the document packet with you, audit it against the customs entry, and pre-file with the US and Mexican or Canadian brokers before pickup.
Cross It
A CTPAT-certified carrier runs the border. Through-trailer or transload, the crossing is timed, tracked, and typically cleared in one to three hours.
Deliver It
The destination leg runs door to door, the POD files with the full customs packet, and your next crossing starts from a template instead of a blank page.
Through-Trailer, Transload, or Driver-Direct
Three ways across the line. Here is how they stack up, honestly.
| Criteria | Through-Trailer (Mexico) | Transload (Mexico) | Driver-Direct (Canada) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Best for | Time-sensitive or high-value Mexico freight | Cost-focused, steady program volume | All standard US and Canada freight |
| How it crosses | The trailer crosses sealed; tractors and drivers swap at the border | Freight re-loads onto a Mexican trailer at a bonded border facility | One truck and one driver run straight through |
| Transit impact | Fastest Mexico option, no re-handling | Adds about a day at the border | No delay beyond customs clearance |
| Handling | Loaded once, sealed to the door | One extra touch at the border | Loaded once, sealed to the door |
| Security | Seal stays intact across the line | Bonded yard, new seal southbound | Seal stays intact across the line |
| Cost profile | Premium over transload | Most economical at steady volume | Standard linehaul plus clearance |
Staying domestic on this load? Read our take on full truckload and LTL, or temperature-controlled for the cold chain on either side of the border.
How Fast Does Cross-Border Freight Move?
Door to door with the crossing included, on CTPAT carriers with entries pre-filed. Transload service adds about a day at the border.
Long lane, flexible schedule? Intermodal rail prices 15 to 30 percent under truckload past 700 miles. Need it there yesterday? Team expedited runs the border nonstop.
Two Borders.
Zero Drama.
Cross-border freight has a reputation: profitable lanes, painful process. We kept the lanes and engineered out the pain, with certified carriers, pre-filed paperwork, and one team that answers in two languages.
Staging Markets on Every Corridor
Daily cross-border coverage across the US, Mexico, and Canada, with deep capacity in the busiest lanes.
Cross-border by industry
The Corridor Playbook
Three guides for shippers who treat freight spend like the line item it is.
Shipping Freight Out of Dallas
The I-35 corridor is the spine of US-Mexico trade, and Dallas is where most of it stages. How to run the lane well.
Read the guide Border StagingShipping Freight Out of Houston
Petrochemicals, project freight, and port boxes: Houston feeds every southern gateway from Laredo to Brownsville.
Read the guide SavingsHow to Cut Freight Shipping Costs
Crossing model, gateway choice, and consolidation are three of the biggest levers on a cross-border budget.
Read the guideCross-Border Freight Shipping FAQs
Cross-border freight shipping is any truckload or LTL shipment that crosses an international border between the United States, Mexico, or Canada. It combines a normal truck move with a customs process: every load needs a commercial invoice, a bill of lading, and a customs entry filed by a licensed broker before it can cross, and Mexico and Canada each add their own documents on top. The three USMCA economies traded about 1.6 trillion dollars in goods in 2025, most of it on trucks, which makes cross-border trucking the backbone of North American trade. AFX Logistics manages the linehaul, the paperwork, the crossing, and the foreign delivery as one move with one point of contact.
Three ways. Through-trailer service, where your trailer crosses the border sealed and only the tractor and driver change, is the fastest and keeps freight untouched. Transload service, where freight is re-loaded from a US trailer onto a Mexican trailer at a bonded border facility, usually costs less and suits steady program volume, but adds about a day. Direct same-truck service across the Mexican border is rare because cabotage rules keep US drivers out of the Mexican interior and Mexican drivers out of the US interior. AFX prices the options on your lane and recommends the one the freight actually needs.
The core packet is a commercial invoice, a packing list, and a bill of lading. On top of that, US exports valued over 2,500 dollars per commodity line require an Electronic Export Information (EEI) filing in ACE, the Mexican customs broker (agente aduanal) files the pedimento, the official Mexican import entry, and the Mexican carrier must carry a CFDI with the Carta Porte complement for the Mexican leg of the haul. If the goods qualify under USMCA, a certification of origin keeps them duty-free. AFX builds and audits this packet with you before pickup, and coordinates directly with the brokers on both sides.
A commercial invoice (or Canada Customs Invoice), a bill of lading, and a customs entry filed by a Canadian broker. The carrier files an ACI eManifest with CBSA before the truck reaches the border, and the shipment pre-clears through PARS, the Pre-Arrival Review System. Since October 2024 the importer of record must also be registered in CBSA’s CARM Client Portal, with financial security posted to keep release-prior-to-payment privileges. Southbound into the US, the carrier files an ACE eManifest and the entry pre-clears through PAPS. AFX coordinates all of it on every Canada crossing.
Effectively yes. A licensed customs broker files the import entry in the destination country, and commercial freight does not clear without one. Mexico goes further: imports must be filed by a licensed agente aduanal, and the importer of record must be registered on Mexico’s importer registry (padrón de importadores). If you already have brokers, AFX coordinates with them on every load. If you do not, we connect you with vetted brokers at the right gateway and manage the handoff, so a first crossing is not a research project.
CTPAT (Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism) is a voluntary CBP program in which carriers, brokers, and importers commit to audited supply-chain security standards. Certified carriers get access to FAST lanes (Free and Secure Trade), dedicated commercial lanes at the major land borders, plus fewer inspections and front-of-line treatment when exams do happen. In practice, a CTPAT carrier in a FAST lane typically crosses in one to three hours, while a non-certified truck can sit four to twelve. AFX runs cross-border freight on CTPAT-certified carriers, which is most of why our crossings are boring.
With paperwork pre-filed and a CTPAT carrier in a FAST lane, one to three hours at the major gateways is typical. Without certification, or with an entry filed late, four to twelve hours is common, and a rejected entry can park a trailer overnight or longer. Transload service adds about a day for the border re-load regardless of clearance speed. The biggest lever is not the truck, it is the timing of the paperwork, which is why AFX files and confirms entries before the truck arrives at the line.
The Carta Porte complement is a mandatory annex to the Mexican electronic invoice (CFDI) that documents what is being hauled, where, and by whom for any freight moving on Mexican federal highways. The Mexican carrier issues it for the transport leg, and enforcement is real: National Guard and SAT checkpoints can fine the carrier or seize goods moving without a valid one. Shippers do not file it themselves, but a missing or wrong Carta Porte still strands your freight, so AFX works only with Mexican partners who issue it correctly, every load, before the wheels turn.
The pedimento is Mexico’s official customs entry, the document that legally imports or exports goods across the Mexican border. Only a licensed Mexican customs broker, an agente aduanal, can file it, based on your commercial invoice, packing list, and product classifications, and the duties and fees it calculates are paid before the freight crosses. A pedimento error is one of the most expensive mistakes in Mexico freight because corrections happen at the border, with your trailer waiting. It is exactly the document our pre-audit process exists to get right the first time.
Often, but not automatically. Goods that qualify as originating under USMCA rules of origin cross duty-free when the importer holds a valid certification of origin, a set of nine data elements that can sit on the invoice or a separate document. Goods that do not qualify pay the destination country’s standard tariff rates, and trade-policy changes can layer additional duties on specific products and materials. Your customs broker makes the qualification call; AFX makes sure the certification travels with the load and reaches the broker before the entry is filed.
No. Cabotage rules on both sides keep US drivers out of the Mexican interior and Mexican drivers out of the US interior, so every Mexico move is a relay. The practical choice is whether your trailer crosses intact (through-trailer) or your freight changes trailers at the border (transload). Canada is the opposite: a single truck and driver can legally run door to door between the US and Canada, which is why Canada crossings feel like long domestic moves with a customs stop. AFX runs both relays and through-moves daily.
Two feeds stitched into one timeline. GPS tracks the truck on both sides of the border, including the Mexican or Canadian leg that most US brokers lose sight of, and customs milestones mark the paperwork: entry filed, entry accepted, crossed, delivered. A bilingual specialist watches the feed and the exceptions, so you get one tracking view and one phone number whether the load is in Ohio or Guanajuato. The POD and the full customs packet file together in your account when the load delivers.