China Maritime Cargo Claims: Carrier Liability and Cargo Damage Under the 2025 Maritime Code

Introduction

Cargo damage claims in China turn on one document: the Maritime Code (中华人民共和国海商法). The Code was comprehensively revised on 28 October 2025 and the revision took effect on 1 May 2026, and it renumbered the provisions most practitioners learned — so an article number carried over from the old 1992 text is now wrong. This guide works from the current text: the carrier's period of responsibility, the defences, the limitation amount, the notice deadlines and the one-year time bar.

The carrier's period of responsibility

Article 47 of the revised Code fixes the period during which the carrier is liable. For containerised goods the carrier is responsible from the time it receives the goods at the port of loading until it delivers them at the port of discharge; for non-containerised goods, from the time the goods are loaded onto the ship until they are discharged. The distinction matters because loss or damage outside the period falls on someone else — the terminal, the inland carrier or the shipper — and the claim must be directed accordingly.

The defences the carrier can raise

Article 52 lists the carrier's exemptions from liability — navigational fault, fire, perils of the sea, inherent vice, insufficiency of packing and the other classic maritime defences, subject to the Code's special limits for domestic sea carriage. In practice the two defences that decide most cases are insufficiency of packing and inherent vice, because the carrier will argue the cargo was unfit for the voyage or that the loss was its own nature. The shipper's answer is the packing record and the survey evidence at loading.

The limitation amount

Article 57 caps the carrier's liability at 666.67 Special Drawing Rights (SDR) per package or unit, or 2 SDR per kilogram of gross weight of the goods lost or damaged, whichever is higher. The package limit only helps if the package count is declared on the bill of lading; an under-declared or generic description shrinks the recovery. A claimant who wants full value must declare the goods' value in the bill of lading, which can lift the limit.

Notifying loss or damage: the deadlines

The notice rules are where claims are lost. Under Article 88, apparent loss or damage must be notified in writing at the time of delivery; for loss or damage that is not apparent, the notice must be given within seven days for non-containerised goods and within fifteen days for containerised goods after delivery. Missing the deadline does not extinguish the claim outright, but it reverses the evidential burden — the receiver then has to prove the goods were damaged on delivery, which is far harder.

The one-year time bar

Article 284 keeps the short limitation period for cargo claims against the carrier: one year, running from the date the goods were delivered or should have been delivered, and the revised Code now frames it as a two-way limitation period. One year is short, especially where the claimant is a foreign consignee coordinating survey, insurance and counsel across borders, so the practical rule is to reserve the claim in writing and start the formal steps immediately, not after the insurance file is complete.

Practical checklist

• Identify which leg of the carriage the damage occurred on, and whether it falls inside the carrier's Article 47 period of responsibility.
• Survey the cargo at discharge, before it leaves the terminal, and keep the surveyor's report and photographs.
• Give written notice of apparent damage at delivery, and of hidden damage within the Article 88 deadlines (7 days non-containerised, 15 days containerised).
• Declare package counts and value accurately on the bill of lading to protect the Article 57 limitation position.
• Treat the Article 284 one-year bar as a hard deadline and reserve the claim in writing immediately.
• Confirm the current article numbers against the 2025 revision before citing them.