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How to start a freight forwarding business in the US?

Alice Zhou
Alice Zhou
Product Marketing Leader, GoFreight

Starting a freight forwarding business in the US involves several steps, including obtaining the necessary licenses and permits, finding a suitable location for your business, and establishing relationships with carriers and other industry partners. Here is a brief overview of the steps you will need to take:

  1. Determine the type of freight forwarding services you will offer, such as air, sea, or land transportation.
  2. Obtain any necessary licenses and permits, including a federal license from the Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) if you plan to offer ocean transportation services.
  3. Choose a location for your business that is easily accessible to carriers and clients, and that has adequate storage and handling facilities.
  4. Establish relationships with carriers and other industry partners, such as customs brokers and warehouse operators, to ensure that you can offer a comprehensive range of services.
  5. Develop a marketing plan to promote your business and attract clients, and invest in the necessary technology and equipment to manage your operations effectively.
  6. Follow all relevant regulations and industry standards, including those related to customs, insurance, and the handling of hazardous materials.

It is important to note that starting a freight forwarding business can be a complex and challenging endeavor, and it is recommended that you seek the advice of experienced professionals and conduct thorough research before launching your business.

The 2026 day-zero tech stack and SOP scaffolding

Most "how to start a freight forwarding business" guides stop at FMC licensing and the surety bond. A founder who has just received their OTI license and is now staring at zero shipments, zero customers, and zero processes will tell you that is when the real work starts. The day-zero tech stack and a starter set of SOPs are what let the first 10 shipments run without losing money to errors.

The day-zero stack for a 2026 greenfield forwarder

Five tools cover the operations a brand-new forwarder cannot avoid. The order matters: skipping any of them means you re-key data, lose track of shipments, or surprise your accountant at month end.

Layer What it does Skip-it cost
Freight management system (FMS) Holds the shipment record. Quoting, booking, tracking, documentation, customer portal. Spreadsheets. Lost shipments. No customer portal means more "where is my container" emails.
Customs filing tool (AES, ISF, AMS) Submits export and import filings to ACE without re-keying from your FMS. 15 to 20 minutes per filing in AESDirect or the ACE portal. At 20 shipments per month that is 5 to 7 hours of avoidable work.
Accounting (QuickBooks or Xero) Invoicing, payments, P&L. Choose one with an integration path to your FMS so you do not re-enter invoices. Manual re-keying from FMS to accounting is the single most cited pain point among forwarders we interview. Avoid from day one.
Carrier integrations (ocean, air) Pulls ETA, gate-out, last-free-day from the carrier feed into your shipment record automatically. Manual carrier-portal lookups. One missed ETA equals one demurrage charge that wipes a shipment margin.
Email plus shared drive (interim) Customer comms, document storage, the things your FMS does not do yet. None if you treat email as the temporary glue between systems, not the system of record. The risk is letting email become your shipment tracker.

The starter SOP set (six documents you need before the first shipment)

  1. 1
    Quote-to-booking workflow
    How a quote becomes a booking, who confirms with the customer, where the shipment record opens.
  2. 2
    Shipment milestones checklist
    The 8 to 12 milestones every shipment hits (booking, gate-in, vessel loaded, ETA, gate-out, etc.) and who owns each.
  3. 3
    Document checklist by mode
    What documents an ocean shipment needs vs an air shipment, vs a US export vs a US import.
  4. 4
    Customs filing trigger SOP
    When to file ISF (24 hours before vessel departure), when to file AES (per US export rules), who files and what data they need.
  5. 5
    Customer exception communication template
    What to send the customer when a vessel is late, when customs is holding, when demurrage is accruing.
  6. 6
    Month-end close checklist
    Tying out FMS invoices to accounting, accruing unbilled charges, closing the shipment.

Founders we work with who set up these six SOPs before their first shipment ship faster, lose fewer margins to errors, and onboard their first hire without recreating institutional knowledge from scratch. The cost of writing them is one or two days. The cost of not having them is paid one error at a time for the next year. A practical template for sequencing this work end to end lives in our guide to freight workflow management.
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