Shipping to Russia around the Red Sea: documents, transit times and border delays for exporters

11 August 2025Trade Pulse

Shipping lines are still keeping clear of the Red Sea, and that quietly rewrites the routing of cargo moving to Russia and the CIS: longer voyages around the Cape of Good Hope, different transshipment hubs, arrival dates that move by weeks. For you as the shipper this is less a freight story than a paperwork story — the bill of lading, the certificate of origin and the conformity documents have to match the route the vessel actually takes, and they have to reach your Russian buyer before the box does. The scale of the reshuffle is visible in one number: container calls at Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah Port are down by almost 70 per cent.

What has changed on the route

Container ship calls at King Abdullah Port in Saudi Arabia fell from 188 in 2023 to 59 in 2024 — a drop of nearly 70 per cent. This year has brought only a slight recovery: 51 container vessels so far. The port opened in 2014 with two jobs. One was to earn from transshipment on the Red Sea trade lanes, where boxes come off large vessels and go onto smaller ones for final delivery. The other was to serve as the entry and exit point for King Abdullah Economic City, where the kingdom has been trying to attract foreign manufacturers.

Most of the decline is transshipment volume that simply went elsewhere, because international carriers are avoiding the Red Sea after the Houthi attacks. Jeddah Islamic Port lost far less — 400 vessels in 2023 against 344 in 2024, down 14 per cent — because it works mainly as the import gateway for the west of the kingdom rather than as a transshipment hub.

Ships that used to call on the Red Sea coast, particularly those arriving from Asia, now go to King Abdulaziz Port in Dammam on the eastern coast instead. "BYD cars destined for Saudi Arabia are shipped to Dammam. Not to the Red Sea ports. It is safer," one regional port executive said, referring to the Chinese electric vehicle maker gaining share in the Gulf.

The attacks began in November 2023 and stopped in January during a short truce in Gaza; when the truce collapsed in March, the group fired missiles at Israel but left merchant shipping alone. This summer it resumed operations at sea and sank two Greek-owned vessels. Shipowners, who earn more when their ships sail the longer way around Africa, are in no hurry to come back. Suez Canal traffic has fallen accordingly, and Egypt has taken the heaviest economic hit.

What it means for your shipment

Two things change for a shipper selling into Russia and the CIS: how long the box travels, and how confidently you can promise a date. A service rerouted around the Cape of Good Hope adds weeks to the voyage and makes the schedule softer. A service that has moved its transshipment away from the Red Sea may hand your container over at a port that is not the one named in your original booking. Neither is a problem in itself — both become a problem when the documents you issued still describe the old routing.

This matters more for Russia than for most destinations, because the declaration there is filed against your paperwork. Whoever handles customs clearance in Russia for your buyer builds the customs value, the HS code and the duty from your invoice, contract and transport documents. If the freight leg is longer and more expensive, the customs value rises with it. If the vessel is late, permits and conformity documents that were valid at shipment may not be valid at arrival.

The same applies to product approvals. Goods entering the EAEU market need conformity documents under the technical regulations, and those are issued on the basis of your technical file, product description and, for many categories, samples. Certification takes weeks, not days, and it is the manufacturer — you — who supplies most of the input. If your buyer starts that process only when the ship is already at sea on the long route, the two timelines still will not meet.

Where the deadline is genuinely tight, the alternative is not a faster ship but a different mode: rail for volume cargo from Asia, air for urgent parts and samples.

Shipping to Russia around the Red Sea: documents, transit times and border delays for exporters

Container traffic at Saudi Arabia's Red Sea ports has collapsed while carriers keep clear of the route

Before and now: what to correct in your booking

Before November 2023	Now	What to change on your side
Asia–Europe and Asia–Mediterranean services run through the Red Sea and Suez	Many services route around the Cape of Good Hope; Suez traffic is down	Put a realistic transit time in the contract and do not sell delivery dates the schedule cannot hold
Transshipment on the Red Sea, including King Abdullah Port	Calls there fell from 188 to 59 a year; the boxes moved to other hubs	Confirm the actual transshipment port with the line before you issue the bill of lading and the origin certificate
Jeddah Islamic Port as a regular Red Sea call	Down 14 per cent, holding up because it serves imports, not transshipment	Expect fewer sailings and thinner feeder options if your cargo transits the area
Vessels from Asia call on the Red Sea coast	They call at Dammam on the east coast instead	Check who pays for the changed leg under your delivery terms before the cargo moves
Stable rotations and predictable ETAs	Owners earn more on the longer route and are in no rush to return	Treat the long route as the working assumption for this season, not as a temporary detour

What your buyer in Russia will now ask you for

Expect a more demanding document request than a year ago, and expect it earlier. The set that keeps a container moving looks like this:

Contract and commercial invoice — full product description, the HS code agreed with the buyer, delivery terms that match the actual routing, and a clear price structure. The customs value in Russia is built from this.
Packing list — quantities, net and gross weights, marking per package.
Bill of lading naming the real ports, including transshipment. A through bill of lading is the simplest way to show the goods travelled from you to the buyer without being traded on the way.
Certificate of origin — it drives the duty rate and, where preferences apply, the proof that origin survived the transshipment.
Conformity documents under the EAEU technical regulations, plus the technical file, product photos and samples the certification body asks for.
Product-specific papers — safety data sheets for chemicals, production and expiry dates for food, manufacturer's declarations for equipment.

The vessel is rarely what stops the cargo. Goods sit at the Russian border when the document set arrives after the box, when the origin certificate describes a route the bill of lading no longer matches, or when a conformity document expires while the ship is still going around Africa.

One more point that is easy to miss on a long voyage: shelf life. For food and for anything with a stated expiry date, weeks added at sea come straight out of the remaining shelf life your buyer needs at the point of sale.

What the exporter should do

Ask your carrier in writing which routing and which transshipment ports apply to your next bookings, and get the current transit time rather than the one in last year's quotation.
Rewrite the delivery dates in your contracts against that transit time, with the longer route as the base case.
Check that the delivery terms in the contract say who carries the cost and the risk if the routing changes mid-voyage.
Issue the invoice, packing list and origin certificate only after the routing is confirmed, so that all three describe the same journey.
Send your buyer the full document scan pack as soon as the vessel sails — not on arrival. The declaration in Russia is prepared before the cargo gets there.
Start the conformity and certification work at the order stage, and hand over the technical file and samples early; this is the step that most often lags the shipment.
For time-critical orders, price a rail or air alternative in advance instead of looking for one when the ship is already late.

Frequently asked questions

Does the longer route change what my buyer pays at the Russian border?
It can. Customs value includes the cost of delivering the goods to the border, so a more expensive freight leg raises the base on which duty and import VAT are calculated — even though the goods and the HS code have not changed.

Our transshipment port changed after the booking. Is that a problem for the origin certificate?
Transshipment does not change the origin of the goods as long as nothing is done to them. What causes questions is inconsistency between documents, so make sure the transport documents show a continuous journey and that the origin certificate is not contradicted by the routing.

Should we switch away from sea freight altogether?
For most volume cargo, no — the sea route still carries the price. Rail and air are worth pricing for orders where a delay costs more than the freight, and it is easier to decide that before the booking than after.

Who is responsible if the vessel is rerouted and the cargo arrives a month late?
Your delivery terms decide it. This is exactly the clause to read again now, because the routing risk has become a routine event rather than an exception.

Summary

Carriers are staying off the Red Sea, transshipment has moved away from the Saudi Red Sea ports, and the long route around Africa is the working assumption for now. For you as the shipper the practical consequences are a longer, less predictable transit and a document set that must match the actual routing and reach your buyer before the vessel does. Fix the transit times in your contracts, confirm the routing before issuing documents, and start certification at the order stage. Leave a request for a consultation, and we will go through your specific shipment.

Send us your route and product description — we will quote sea, rail or road delivery and check the document set your Russian buyer needs for customs clearance.

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