The packing list template. The form that says what's in which package.

If you're looking for a packing list template, you're preparing a shipment, not a suitcase. You need the form, and the four details that make it a document.

This piece is part of the guide to export operations for small food producers, and it gives you the actual form. Who prepares which document, and in what order, is on the companion page: the shipping documents folder, and who does what.

The template, to download

Four files, with the same fields in all four. The Excel file is the working copy, because anyone filling in a packing list wants the package count and the two weights to add up by themselves rather than recounting them. The PDF is the copy you print and attach to the shipment.

File	When to use it	Link
ItalianExcel, with totals	The internal copy. Fourteen package lines, with packages, net weight and gross weight totalled automatically at the bottom.	packing-list-modello-it.xlsx
EnglishExcel, with totals	Same fields, same order. This is the version that travels, because the customs agent at the other end reads it.	packing-list-modello-en.xlsx
ItalianPDF, to print	For filling in by hand in the warehouse while you count, or for passing round without risking changes.	packing-list-modello-it.pdf
EnglishPDF, to attach	The copy you attach to the shipment once the numbers are final and won't change again.	packing-list-modello-en.pdf

The files are free. There's no form in the way, we don't ask for an email address, and we don't get notified when anyone downloads them. If you want your logo on them, open the file and add it: it's an ordinary document, and it doesn't copy any courier's form.

Packing list example, filled in

The template above is the blank form. This is the same sheet filled in: twelve cartons of extra virgin olive oil shipped to Switzerland by express courier. It's a worked example, so the company, the consignee and the figures are made up; the fields, the four required details and the rules are real.

Field	In the example	Why
Shipper and consignee	Azienda Agricola Esempio, Puglia, with VAT and EORI numbers. Importatore Esempio SA, Lugano, Switzerland.	The same details, written the same way, as on the invoice.
Commercial invoice	FT 147/2026 of 5 October 2026.	It's the first of the four required details: it ties the packing list to that invoice and no other.
Carrier and shipment	Express courier with customs clearance, AWB 1234567890.	The carrier's number is how the shipment gets traced.
Container and pallets	None: twelve loose cartons.	Fill it in even when there isn't one: a blank field looks like something was forgotten.

Packages	Contents	Weights and batch, per package
1-8eight cartons	Extra virgin olive oil, 6 × 0.75 l bottles. HS code 1509 20, origin Italy, carton 25 × 17 × 33 cm.	4.122 kg net, 7.494 kg gross. Batch L26-284.
9-12four cartons	Extra virgin olive oil, 12 × 0.25 l bottles. HS code 1509 20, origin Italy, carton 28 × 21 × 20 cm.	2.748 kg net, 6.124 kg gross. Batch L26-285.
Totaltwelve packages	Two products, one invoice, no pallets.	43.968 kg net, 84.448 kg gross.

Here identical rows are grouped and the weights are per package; the file has one row for each package, as in the template, and Excel works out the totals.

Three things to look at. The invoice number is at the top, because it's the first of the four required details. Every package has its own batch number, because a customs check opens one carton, not the whole shipment. And the description matches the invoice word for word.

Net weights are for the oil alone, at 0.916 kg per litre, an indicative figure; gross weights add the bottle, cap, label and carton. With your own packaging the weights will be different: weigh them, don't estimate. Code 1509 20 is the Harmonized System subheading for extra virgin olive oil, as shown in the UK Integrated Online Tariff.

File	When to use it	Link
ItalianExcel, filled in	The example with one row per package and the totals worked out. Keep it open next to the blank template while you fill in your own.	packing-list-esempio-it.xlsx
EnglishExcel, filled in	The same example in English, the language a packing list usually travels in.	packing-list-esempio-en.xlsx
ItalianPDF, filled in	To print, or to give to the warehouse team packing the cartons, so they can see what a finished one looks like.	packing-list-esempio-it.pdf
EnglishPDF, filled in	To send to the buyer or the freight forwarder, so you can agree the format they expect before you ship.	packing-list-esempio-en.pdf

The four details that make it a document

The Turin Chamber of Commerce lists the packing list among the documents commonly used in international trade, and sets out what it should contain in a single line. It's the only authoritative list around, and it comes down to four things:

Issued by the seller, the packing list must show the number of the commercial invoice it relates to, the number and type of packages, a description of the goods in each package, and the details of any container the goods are loaded into.

The first of the four is the one most often missing. A packing list without the invoice number isn't linked to anything: the person receiving it has a list of packages that could belong to any shipment, and the first thing they'll do is email you to ask which one.

The third is the one that costs most when it's vague. It isn't enough to say how much is shipping in total: you need to know what's inside each package, because a customs check opens one package, not the whole pallet.

The fields, one by one

The four above are required. The rest help the people who load, insure and unload, and you only fill them in once, because for a given product they hardly ever change.

Field	What goes in	Why it matters
Invoice numberrequired	The exact number of the commercial invoice the packing list relates to.	It's the only detail that links the two documents. Without it, the form can't be checked.
Number and type of packagesrequired	How many packages, and what kind: cartons, crates, drums.	It's the first count done on unloading, before anything is even opened.
Description per packagerequired	What each package contains, using the same description as the invoice.	A check opens one package, not the whole load. If that package doesn't match, everything stops.
Container detailsrequired if there is one	The container's prefix and number, and the seal number if there is one.	It links the document to the physical unit the goods are travelling in.
Customs code (HS)useful	At least the first six digits, the same as on the invoice.	A different code on the two documents changes the duty and triggers a check.
Net and gross weightuseful	Shown separately, per line and in total, with the unit of measure written out.	Weight is scanned along the way, and any discrepancy costs you in freight.
Batchuseful, and for food almost always	The batch number of the goods in each package.	It's the field that makes a shipment traceable downstream without reopening the warehouse.

Packing list and DDT: the difference

They're two different documents meeting two different needs, and mixing them up leads to sending one instead of the other. The Italian transport document is governed by Presidential Decree 472/1996, and the Turin Chamber of Commerce gives it two specific purposes: allowing deferred invoicing, and rebutting the legal presumptions of sale and purchase. The seller must issue it before transport begins, and it has to show the date of the transaction, the details of seller, buyer and carrier, and the nature, quality and quantity of the goods.

The packing list has none of that. No law requires it, no law sets its format, and it doesn't serve any tax purpose: it describes how the load is made up, package by package, for the people who check or unload it. A good DDT says how much was shipped; a packing list says which box it's in.

	DDT	Packing list
Where it comes from	Presidential Decree 472/1996. It has written rules.	Commercial practice. No law requires it.
What it's for	Deferred invoicing, and proof against the presumptions of sale and purchase.	Telling the people who check and unload what's in each package.
The detail	Nature, quality and quantity of the goods sold, in figures.	One line per package, with weights, dimensions and batch.
Who reads it	The people keeping the accounts, on both sides.	The carrier, customs, the receiving warehouse.

According to the same source, any other document (a delivery note, a consignment note, a bill of lading) counts as a DDT as long as it contains the essential details. A packing list, on its own, doesn't contain all of them: keeping the two separate takes ten minutes and removes any doubt.

The description is the field that gets loads held

Of all the fields, the one that causes hold-ups is the description of the goods, precisely because it looks the most harmless. FedEx says as much in its guide to filling in shipping documents: imprecise or vague descriptions of the goods are among the most common reasons for customs delays.

Its advice that follows is even more practical, and it's worth exactly as much as the effort of following it: use consistent, detailed descriptions across every document in the shipment. Not a better description on each form: the same one, copied.

The working rule that comes out of this is a single line of work. The description, customs code, origin and weights are written once, in one place, and copied from there onto the invoice, packing list, proof of origin and health certificate. The sheet that compares invoice and packing list lets you check that it actually happened.

Who prepares it, and from what data

The seller prepares it, as the Chamber of Commerce says, and in practice it's filled in by the warehouse manager, the only person who knows the packages, weights and batches. The freight forwarder works from the data they're given: if it arrives incomplete, they stop and ask, and that round of emails becomes the delay that then gets blamed on customs.

But the data doesn't start in the warehouse. Pack size, units per carton, cartons per pallet, and the net and gross weight of the carton are already written in the product spec sheet, and that's the source. When the packing list is filled in from the spec sheet rather than by recounting, the two documents can't drift apart.

When filling it in by hand stops working

With two shipments a year and three products, the packing list takes twenty minutes, and no system does it better than a careful person. It breaks at a different point: when shipments become weekly, products number fifteen and every load mixes different batches, retyping the same data onto four documents stops being a task and becomes a source of mistakes.

That's when the data needs to come out of the files and into a place where the documents are built from the same source, so that a description corrected once is corrected everywhere. With one rule that matters more than the technology, set out in Ethics: the system prepares and flags, but no document goes out until a person has read and approved it. On a packing list that sign-off is substance, because the signature declares what's in the packages.

Questions and answers