DAFDelivered at Frontier

DAF was built for trucks and trains crossing a land border, and it was retired in 2010. If you're buying from India by sea or air then you'll only meet it in an old contract, a textbook or a template somebody kept. Here's what it was, so you can recognise it and move on.

The current rules are Incoterms 2020, in force since 1 January 2020, and as of 28 September 2026 the ICC has published no newer edition. One honest caveat - we have never seen DAF on a quote to a foreign buyer in our research, so this page is about recognising an old habit, not fighting a live one.

Where You'll Still Find It

Mazagon Dock, the Indian government shipbuilder in Mumbai, still hosts its purchase manual's "Terms of Delivery" appendix on its website. It opens by saying the D terms in "INCOTERMS-2000" are "DAF, DES, DEQ, DDU and DDP", then defines DAF as delivery "at the named point and place at the frontier, but before the customs border of the adjoining country" (Mazagon Dock's purchase manual (opens in a new tab), 2006, still online on 28 September 2026). The text is 20 years old and two editions out of date, and it's still a page anyone's commercial team can find when they search.

That's how DAF survives in India. Not through exporters quoting it to you, but through public-sector templates that nobody has had a reason to rewrite. India's land borders with Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh are the only trade where the habit could still matter.

What DAF Meant

Delivered at Frontier. The seller delivered the goods, cleared for export but not for import, on the arriving vehicle and not unloaded, at a named point on the frontier. The seller's risk ran to that point. From the border on, the carriage, the import clearance and the duty were yours.

The ICC added it in the 1967 edition, alongside DDP, for road and rail trade between neighbours. That's why it lived mostly in Europe and hardly at all in sea trade.

What Replaced It

The 2010 edition dropped DAF with DES, DEQ and DDU, and brought in two any-mode rules, DAT and DAP. DAP does DAF's job. The seller carries the goods and the risk to a named place and you take over there, ready for unloading, with import clearance on you. The named place can be a border crossing if that's what you want, and it can also be your warehouse, which is what most buyers actually want and what DAF never allowed.

Why retire it? The ICC said the four old delivered rules overlapped and the new pair made them superfluous. Four ways to say "delivered, not cleared" was three too many.

If A Supplier Still Quotes DAF

Ask for DAP [named place], Incoterms 2020, and name the exact point, because under DAP that point is where risk and cost change hands. If the supplier really means a border crossing then name the crossing and the side of it. If they mean your door then say so, and expect the price to change.

"Frontier" is not a place. A DAF contract that named a border without naming the crossing left both sides guessing, and under a withdrawn rule they'd argue it with no rulebook. The other misread is taking DAF as delivered to your premises. It never was. Delivery stopped at the border, on the vehicle, and the last leg was yours.