A Barcelona port glossary: BEST, APM, Portic, admítase, entréguese, VGM and the terms that move your container

This is that map: the terms that actually move a container through the Port of Barcelona, ordered the way the cargo lives them — who is involved, where it goes, on what paperwork, against which clock and on which box. Written by an operator who uses them every day, not copied out of a manual. Keep it. It is built for reference.

At the port, words are operations: anyone who confuses an entréguese with an admítase, or demurrage with detention, does not have a vocabulary problem. They have a container standing still.

The players: who is who in the flow

Shipping line (naviera, owner). The ocean carrier: it supplies the vessel and the container, charges the freight, and charges the demurrage and detention when its equipment does not come back on time.

Shipping agent (consignatario). The line's representative in the port. It issues the documents that authorise every movement of the container, the entréguese and the admítase, coordinates the vessel call and answers to the local authorities.

Freight forwarder (transitario). The architect of the transport. It organises the full door-to-door chain, contracts everyone else, handles customs and issues its own bill of lading. It is often the party that hires us for the special road leg.

Carrier (transportista). Whoever moves the box by road. In Spanish legal vocabulary, the porteador of Ley 15/2009 (LCTTM).

Stevedore (estibador). The port professional who loads and discharges vessels. In Barcelona, stevedoring is a trade with its own regulation and its own equipment.

The infrastructure: terminals and depots

Container terminal. The installation that connects ship to shore: quay, cranes, yard and gates. Barcelona has two dedicated container terminals and one multipurpose:

• BEST (Barcelona Europe South Terminal). The Hutchison Ports terminal at Moll Prat, operated through its concession company Tercat: semi-automated, with a demonstrated capacity record of 2.7 million TEU (2023) and the largest on-terminal rail station in the Mediterranean, with eight dual-gauge tracks. Hutchison retains control of the terminal; the sale of its stake to MSC/BlackRock was withdrawn in August 2026.
• APM Terminals Barcelona. The A.P. Møller-Maersk terminal at Moll Sud: 1.26 million TEU of official annual capacity, fourteen quay cranes, its own customs office and six rail tracks of 750 metres.
• Terminal Bergé. The multipurpose terminal that also handles containers, at more than 50,000 TEU a year.

(One note that saves confusion: Sammer is not a container depot, although it is sometimes described as one. It is a multipurpose terminal belonging to Grupo Mestre, historically dedicated to steel products and scrap.)

Container depot. The inland facility where empty containers live: storage, washing, repair and inspection. It is where the empty is collected for an export and where it goes back after an import. The official depots inside the port area are Barcelona Container Depot Service, known commercially as Martainer or BCN Depot and the largest of the three, with washing, repair and reefer PTI services; Transportes Portuarios; and Delta Depot Barcelona.

ZAL (Zona de Actividades Logísticas). The port's intermodal logistics platform, the first in Spain, managed by CILSA. Zona Franca, its neighbour, is the large industrial and logistics estate alongside the port area.

The nervous system: Portic

Portic. Barcelona's Port Community System: the telematic platform that connects close to 500 companies in the port community and processes more than 31 million document exchanges a year. Everything that is still paper or email in other ports goes through Portic here: pre-advices, delivery and admission orders, weighing requests, container tracking.

Preaviso (pre-advice). The telematic notice to the terminal that a truck is coming in to deliver or collect. No accepted pre-advice, no operation.

Pincode (collection PIN). The code that authorises the collection of one specific container. The driver handles it from TransPORTIC, the carrier's app, where he sees the status of the PIN, the customs situation of the box and the associated documents, and reports the plate, the seal and his arrival.

Cita previa (slot booking). The reservation of a time window to enter the terminal, mandatory at APM and BEST through the port's appointment system.

The container moves on telematic paperwork: since 2018, no terminal in Barcelona takes in a box without its admítase or releases one without its entréguese.

The documents: what authorises each movement

Entréguese (delivery order). The document with which the shipping agent authorises the carrier to collect a container: the full import box at the terminal, or the empty at the depot to load an export. Without an accepted telematic entréguese, the box does not leave.

Admítase (admission order). The mirror image of the above: it authorises the terminal to receive a container, the full export box arriving to be loaded, with its vessel, call and seal details. Since 2018, terminals and depots in Barcelona work only with telematic entréguese and admítase.

Levante (customs release). The customs authorisation to dispose of the goods. Without levante, an import container can hold a valid entréguese and still be blocked: two different keys to the same door.

Transport order (OT). The client's instruction to the carrier: which box, from where to where, when.

EIR (Equipment Interchange Receipt). The interchange document signed at the terminal or depot gate when a container is received or returned, recording its condition at that moment: knocks, damage, seal. It is the boundary of liability between the party handing over and the party taking in. Damage not noted on the EIR is, officially, damage that happened later. If the container comes out damaged, that piece of paper decides the claim.

VGM (Verified Gross Mass). The verified weight of the full container, including cargo, lashing and tare, mandatory under the SOLAS convention since 2016 for the box to be loaded. It is obtained by weighing the closed container on a certified weighbridge (method 1) or by adding up weights under an approved procedure (method 2). The responsibility sits with the shipper named on the documents, and in Barcelona the weighing is requested and paid through Portic. No VGM, no vessel.

DUA. The Documento Único Administrativo, the Single Administrative Document: the customs declaration for import or export with countries outside the EU. Its release copy is what frees the goods.

what happens when the EIR really counts — the damaged container and how it is moved out — →

The clock and the money: demurrage, detention and storage

Three concepts that get confused every day and are invoiced separately. All three can run at once on the same container:

Demurrage. What the shipping line charges when its container stays inside the terminal beyond the free days. The clock starts at discharge from the vessel.

Detention. What the shipping line charges when its container is outside the port, at the plant, in the warehouse, on the road, beyond the free period. The clock runs from the moment the box leaves the port area until the empty is returned to the depot.

Storage (almacenaje, ocupaciones). What the terminal charges for the physical space the box takes up in its yard. It is a separate charge from demurrage, even though both measure the same time.

Free time (días libres, franquicia). The days at no cost granted by the shipping line, for demurrage and detention, or by the terminal, for storage. Free time varies with the line, the contract and the equipment: reefers and special containers usually get less of it.

The practical reading: returning the empty is not a closing formality, it is a price variable from day one. That is why every transport enquiry we handle starts with the empty flow — who collects, where it goes back, how many free days there are — before we put a figure on it.

the guide for freight forwarders — the eleven data points we need to quote first time, empty flow included — →

The boxes: from TEU to out of gauge

TEU. The sector's unit of measure: a twenty-foot container equals one TEU, a forty-foot two.

High Cube (HC). The increased-height container: 2.90 metres external against the standard 2.59. Those thirty centimetres matter on the road leg.

Open top. The open-roofed container with a tarpaulin. It exists for cargo that can only be loaded from above, by crane, or that stands taller than the door opening.

Flat rack. The platform with end walls and no sides: the base for project cargo, from machinery and structures to vehicles, everything that does not fit in a closed box. It has its own guide on this blog, with dimensions and capacities.

OOG (out of gauge). Cargo that projects beyond the container's outline, in width, height or length. For the vessel it means a surcharge and lost slots; for the road it is the entry point to special transport, because chassis, box and cargo are measured as a single piece against the circulation limits.

Reefer and PTI. The refrigerated container and its Pre-Trip Inspection before the voyage, carried out in Barcelona by the authorised depots and by BEST itself.

Tare, payload and MGW. The weight of the empty container, what it accepts in cargo, and the maximum gross weight of the whole. Three figures off the plate that decide weighbridge, VGM and, on the road leg, the configuration of the transport.

Seal (precinto). The numbered seal that closes the container doors and travels recorded on the admítase and the EIR. Broken or swapped without a record, it is a problem; under customs control, it is not touched without authorisation.

the flat rack guide — what it is, dimensions, capacities and when its transport becomes special — →

the oversized container guide — open top, flat rack and high tonnage — and their road regime →

How we approach it at PASTOR

Sixty years of family tradition in special transport out of the Port of Barcelona means, among other things, speaking this language without having to think about it: the Portic registration, the pre-advice, the Pincode in the driver's app, the entréguese checked before the truck is sent out, the EIR read at the gate, the empty flow priced in from the first email. The own fleet, conventional lowbed and extendable platform, covers the leg where this glossary meets our trade: the container that, by size, mass or condition, drops out of the standard circuit and needs special transport.

For the shipper starting to operate through Barcelona, the promise is simple. You do not need to master the jargon to move the cargo. Tell us what you have and where it is going; the translation, documentary, operational and regulatory, is part of the service. The shipper holds a single point of contact: ours.

the complete guide to special transport through the Port of Barcelona in 2026 →