Uganda coffee contract terms settle three questions before a container moves: who books the space and pays the freight, which weight the invoice is built on, and how many days a buyer has to claim for quality. Most sales into Europe run on one standard text, and it answers all three whether or not the contract repeats it.
This guide covers the terms Ugandan exporters quote, the weight basis behind each, the claim windows buyers miss, and the checks worth running before you sign. Uganda is landlocked, so the port question carries more here than in a coastal origin.
What FOB means when the origin has no seaport
Most sales into Europe run on the European Standard Contract for Coffee, published by the European Coffee Federation and in application since 1 September 2018. Its Shipment section covers FCA, FOB, CFR and CIF sales. Buyers into the United States often work on Green Coffee Association terms, and whichever text applies, it sets the claim clock.
That standard is blunt about the coffee trade's version of FOB. Even where the price is expressed "Free on Board port of shipment", the contract is treated as an ill-defined Cost and Freight contract with the freight for the buyer's account. FOB sellers reserve space and are responsible for the actual shipment, and their responsibility ends when the coffee crosses the ship's rail. A buyer who wants effective FOB conditions has to say so before the contract is concluded and give the shipping instructions in time.
This matters more in Uganda than in most origins. Coffee travels about 1,170 kilometres by road from Kampala to Mombasa before it reaches a vessel, and the road leg alone runs at roughly USD 1,200 to 1,800 per 20-foot container. When an exporter quotes FOB, ask which point the price is fixed at: the Kampala warehouse, the Kampala Inland Container Depot, or the quay at Mombasa. The shipping and logistics guide covers the corridor.
Uganda coffee contract terms: FCA, FOB, CFR and CIF
Each term moves a different cost, risk and weight basis onto the buyer.
- FCA Kampala or the ICD. The seller delivers to the carrier inland, and the contract is normally made on loaded weight, so the weight fixed at stuffing is the weight invoiced. The buyer must ship within the agreed period: 28 calendar days from receipt at the port of shipment, or 56 days where delivery was inland. If shipping is still blocked 45 days after that window, the loaded weight and quality become final.
- FOB Mombasa. The seller books the space and ships, risk passes at the ship's rail, and the buyer pays the ocean freight. Weight is shipped weight unless the contract says landed weight.
- CFR. The seller pays freight to the named port of destination and nothing more. Risk still transfers at shipment.
- CIF. The seller pays freight and insures the cargo against all risks, plus war risks and strikes and riots, for 5 percent above the contract price with freight included. Any war and strikes premium above 0.5 percent is charged to the buyer.
Under all four terms, export licensing is the seller's responsibility and import authorisation is the buyer's. Duties follow the same split, with the seller carrying what is imposed in Uganda and the buyer carrying what is imposed at destination.
The weight basis decides the invoice
The standard allows a tolerance of 3 percent more or less on quantity, and only where the difference is outside the seller's control. Landed weight is where the value shifts. The coffee is weighed after discharge at the buyer's expense, not later than 21 calendar days from the final date of discharge, and the seller refunds any loss above 0.5 percent of the invoice weight. Loaded weight is fixed when the container is stuffed; shipped weight is fixed at the time and place of shipment, and the figure on the bill of lading is the figure invoiced. On a landed weight contract the weight note has to reach the seller within 28 calendar days of the weighing, or the shipped weight can be treated as final.
Ugandan export lots normally move in 60 kilogram jute bags: 320 to 325 bags to a 20-foot container, about 19.2 tonnes net, and 440 to 460 bags to a 40-foot, about 26.4 tonnes net, the limit coming from road weight rules on the corridor rather than container volume. Tare comes off on an average taken from five empty bags.
Quality, samples and the 28 day claim window
Quality is whatever the contract says it is, with the default that the coffee must be sound and merchantable. Grading runs through the ministry's quality assurance directorate before shipment, and the grade names on the certificate are unchanged: Bugisu AA, Bugisu A, Bugisu B, Wugar, Drugar, screen 18, screen 15 and screen 12. The region guides, the variety profiles and the processing guide sit alongside the grade reference when you set a specification.
The claim clock is the part buyers miss most often.
- Arbitration samples must be drawn and sealed by an independent qualified body within 28 calendar days of the final date of discharge. Each container gets its own sample, and each quality inside a container gets its own.
- Quality claims must be formulated within 28 calendar days of the final date of discharge.
- All other claims, including weight, run to 45 calendar days from final discharge, or from the last day of the shipping period if the coffee never shipped.
- Formal notice of arbitration is due within 28 calendar days of the claim for quality disputes, and 90 calendar days for other disputes.
Where coffee is unsound, or where there is a radical difference in quality, the buyer can seek an allowance or discharge the contract by invoicing the coffee back to the seller. Excess moisture counts as one criterion of unsound coffee. On-carriage shortens the deadlines: for a container moved from the port of discharge to an inland destination without being stripped, weighing runs to 7 days from arrival and quality claims to 15 days.
Payment terms and the documents behind them
Where payment is by letter of credit, the credit has to be opened in strict conformity with the contract and stay valid at least 21 calendar days beyond the last date for shipment. Those three weeks are what cover a vessel delay or a corrected document. The coffee stays the seller's property until it is paid for in full, even after the documents have changed hands.
On a CIF sale the seller provides the invoice, a complete set of shipped bills of lading or the carrier's receipt, a weight certificate and an insurance certificate, then the certificate of origin, a preferential entry certificate where one applies, and phytosanitary and fumigation certificates where the destination asks for them. Buyers have to accept a bill of lading marked "said to contain" or "shippers load and count", with the seller answerable for any difference between the bags invoiced and the bags that arrive.
The Ugandan paperwork changed with the National Coffee (Amendment) Act 2024. Exporters now register with the Coffee Development Department in the Ministry of Agriculture rather than holding a UCDA licence, and the registration package includes a performance bond of USD 25,000. Inspection and grading did not move. Buyers contracting into 2027 also need the EUDR dates in the supply terms: 30 December 2026 for large and medium operators, and 30 June 2027 for micro and small enterprises.
Where the price behind the contract comes from
Contract prices are set against the daily indicative prices published for the Ugandan market and the futures market for the grade family. The Coffee Development Department continues the daily series that UCDA published. On 4 September 2026 it put Bugisu AA at 293.10 US cents per pound and screen 18 Robusta at 170.83, a spread of 122.27 US cents in favour of Arabica, or 71.6 percent. In tonne terms that is about USD 6,462 for Bugisu AA and USD 3,766 for screen 18. The daily history for every grade sits on the Uganda coffee prices portal.
Checks before you sign
- Name the port of shipment and the port of destination. FOB on its own leaves the Kampala to Mombasa leg open to interpretation.
- Fix the weight basis and say who weighs. Landed weight moves the 21 day weighing limit and the 0.5 percent loss threshold onto the seller.
- Diarise the claim windows: 28 days for quality, 45 days for everything else, counted from final discharge.
- Match the grade on the certificate to the grade you priced, and name the moisture limit in the contract.
- Make EUDR data a condition of supply: geolocation polygons, the farm identifiers behind them, and the due diligence statement, agreed before shipment.
The buyer's guide walks through supplier checks, grade definitions, payment structures and contracting in sequence.
Uganda coffee contract terms carry the work that a coastal origin leaves to the port: which point the price is fixed at, which weight the invoice uses, and how long the buyer has to test the coffee after discharge. The standard text handles most of that by default in European sales, the 28 day quality window being the one that catches buyers out, and the landlocked route means the FOB line needs a named place.