Licensed customs house agents · Cochin · Vizhinjam · Kottayam ICD
No call centre, no ticket number, no account manager three cities away. You get a licensed broker who knows your commodity and picks up the phone. Clearance, freight, transport and storage across Kerala since 1965.
From the desk
Rules, rates and berths move quickly. Here's what we're telling clients this month.
What the deep-water berth means if you currently feed through Colombo, and when it starts saving you days.
Read the notePlastic and tyre waste obligations now surface at clearance. We can check your filing position before the vessel arrives.
Read the noteIn force since 15 July 2026. UK duties of up to 21.5% on marine products are gone, if your goods meet the origin rules.
Read the noteServices
Most clients start with clearance and end up handing us the whole leg. Every service below is run by our own staff at the port, not subcontracted out and hoped for.
Bills of Entry and Shipping Bills filed on ICEGATE the same day documents land with us. Our people are on the dock during examination, which is the difference between a query answered in an hour and a container sitting for three days.
Ask about a shipment Read about clearanceSpace booked with carriers we deal with week in, week out. Because we clear the cargo as well as move it, the booking is made against a realistic clearance date rather than an optimistic one.
Ask for a sea rate Read about sea freightOut of Cochin International, and via Chennai or Bengaluru when the routing is better. Mostly used by our seafood and spice exporters, and by anyone whose production line is about to stop.
Ask for an air rate Read about air freightTrailers and trucks arranged against the clearance timeline, not against a call centre queue. We move within Kerala daily and run upcountry to Coimbatore, Bengaluru and Chennai on regular lanes.
Check a lane Read about transportCovered and open storage close to the port, for cargo waiting on duty, on a buyer, or on space at your own plant. Stock reported weekly in whatever format your accounts team already uses.
Ask about space Read about warehousingThe part clients ask for once they trust us. Where duty is being overpaid, where an FTA changes the maths, where a compliance obligation is quietly accruing in the background.
Book a review Read about advisorySectors
Sixty years in the same trades means the questions have all been asked before. We know how each of these is classified, what customs will want to see, and which month everything arrives at once.
Natural and synthetic rubber, carbon black, bead wire, curing presses and mill spares.
Newsprint reels, kraft, pulp and recovered fibre, including waste paper import compliance.
Reefer exports of shrimp, cuttlefish and fin fish, with health certification handled.
Pepper, cardamom, raw cashew imports from West Africa and processed kernel exports.
Coir pith blocks, mats and geotextiles, mostly LCL to Europe and North America.
Plant, transformers and oversized units, from route survey through to foundation.
The firm
Philipson & Sons has cleared cargo at Cochin since 1965, when the docks still ran on carbon paper and a bicycle. We are deliberately not large. Clients get the same two people on every job, and those people have stood on the dock beside their containers. What is changing is reach: we now clear at Vizhinjam and at Kottayam ICD, and we are appointing agents at every major Indian port.
Trade desk
The references our own staff use daily, written plainly. No login, no form.
How classification actually gets decided, and what to do when two headings both look right.
All eleven terms, with the two that most Kerala exporters should stop using.
Who declares, by when, and what happens to your booking if the weight is short.
Internal dimensions, payloads and tare for every box you're likely to be offered.
Contact
Send the commodity, the port and roughly when it lands. You'll get a real answer from a licensed broker, usually the same working day.
Harbour View, AG Milne Rd, Willingdon Island, Kochi, Kerala 682003
Monday to Saturday, 9:00–18:30 IST