DAFDelivered at Frontier

DAF was a rule for trucks and trains crossing a land border, and it went away 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 someone never threw out. This page tells you what it meant, so you can spot it and move on.

Incoterms 2020 is the edition in force (since 1 January 2020), and as of 28 September 2026 the ICC hasn't published a newer one. One honest caveat - we have never seen DAF on a quote to a foreign buyer in our research, so this is about recognising an old habit, not fighting a live one.

Where You'll Still Find It

Mazagon Dock, the 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). That text is 20 years old and two editions out of date, and anyone's commercial team can still find it with one search.

So DAF doesn't survive in India because exporters quote it to you, it survives because public-sector templates sit untouched for decades and nobody has had a reason to rewrite them.

The only trade where the habit could still matter is over India's land borders with Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh.

What DAF Meant

Delivered at Frontier, to give it its full name. The seller delivered the goods cleared for export but not for import, still 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 all yours.

The ICC added it in the 1967 edition, alongside DDP, for road and rail trade between neighbours. Which is why it lived mostly in Europe and hardly ever showed up in sea trade.

What Replaced It

The 2010 edition dropped DAF along with DES, DEQ and DDU, and brought in two any-mode rules, DAT and DAP. DAP now does DAF's job.

Under DAP 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, but it can also be your warehouse, which is what most buyers actually want and what DAF never allowed.

Why retire it at all? The ICC said the four old delivered rules overlapped and the new pair made them superfluous. Four ways of saying "delivered, not cleared" was three too many, and we think the ICC got that one right.

What to Ask For When a Quote Says 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 move.

Here's the catch - "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 be arguing with no rulebook at all.

The other misread is taking DAF to mean delivered to your premises. It never did. Delivery stopped at the border, on the vehicle, and the last leg was always yours.