Terms and conditions for a courier and same-day delivery business

A courier business lives or dies on two clauses: what you owe when a consignment is lost, damaged or late, and when you get paid. Most operators are trading on something a customer sent them, or on nothing at all, and find out the position after a pallet of stock disappears. I draft trading terms around your routes, vehicles and customer base for a fixed fee of £995, delivered in five working days.

Who this is for

Same-day and overnight couriers, motorcycle and van operators, multi-drop delivery businesses, medical and legal courier services and small fleets in England and Wales. Most of your work will be for business account customers, but if you take bookings from the public through a website or by phone, those senders are consumers and the terms have to be written with both in mind.

What matters in courier and same-day delivery terms

Liability for loss and damage in transit

This is the clause your insurer and your customers will read first. Your terms should set a clear limit on what you pay for loss or damage, tie it to your goods in transit cover, and offer a higher limit where the sender declares a higher value and pays for it. Against business customers a limit in your written standard terms is judged for reasonableness under the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977, which looks at bargaining strength, what the customer knew and who could insure, so a limit that quietly matches your policy is far safer than one plucked from the air. Liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence cannot be excluded at all.

Late is not the same as lost

A same-day promise invites claims for what the delay cost rather than what the parcel was worth: the production line that stopped, the tender that missed the deadline, the hearing that went ahead without the bundle. Your terms should distinguish a guaranteed timed service, which you may refund, from a delivery estimate affected by traffic, weather and loading delays outside your control. Indirect and consequential losses, lost profit and wasted expenditure should be excluded against business customers, and the terms should say plainly what a customer buys when they pay a premium for a timed slot.

What you will not carry, and whose fault the packing is

Your terms need a list of goods you refuse to carry or carry only by prior written agreement: cash, jewellery, prescription medicines, firearms, hazardous and temperature-sensitive goods, live animals and anything requiring a licence. Pair that with a sender warranty that the consignment is correctly described, packed and labelled, and an indemnity if it is not, because the driver cannot see inside a sealed box. If you move waste, even builders' waste on a return leg, you must be registered with the Environment Agency under the Control of Pollution (Amendment) Act 1989 and the Waste (England and Wales) Regulations 2011.

Proof of delivery, leave-safe and claim deadlines

Most disputes are evidential. The terms should define what counts as delivery, including a signature, a photograph or a delivery to a neighbour or a safe place at the customer's written instruction, and should shift the risk of a leave-safe instruction onto whoever gave it. Set a short written notification period for visible damage and shortage, a longer one for non-delivery, and require a claim in writing with supporting invoices. Without those deadlines you are exposed for six years under the Limitation Act 1980 to a claim about a consignment nobody can now trace.

Account customers, surcharges and getting paid

Courier pricing is full of extras: waiting time beyond the free allowance, failed delivery and redelivery, return to sender, dead mileage, tolls, congestion and clean air charges and fuel adjustment. Each needs to be a stated charge in the terms, not a surprise on the invoice. For business accounts the Late Payment of Commercial Debts (Interest) Act 1998 gives you interest at 8% over the Bank of England base rate plus fixed compensation of £40, £70 or £100 depending on the size of the debt, and a 30-day default credit period where none is agreed. A contractual right to hold goods until your charges are paid is worth including, and worth using carefully.

Consumer senders, online bookings and incorporation

A member of the public booking a same-day collection online or by phone has a distance contract, so the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 give them fourteen days to cancel. You avoid an argument by taking their express request to start at once and their acknowledgement, and recording it. The price shown must include mandatory charges rather than revealing them at checkout, which the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 treats as drip pricing. None of this helps if the terms were never incorporated, so I will explain how to bring them into the booking form, the account application and the consignment note.

What it costs

Customer or supplier terms and conditions, £995. One set of terms, customer-facing or supplier-facing, drafted around your business. Five working days.

Review of your existing terms, £495. You already have terms and want to know how much of a problem they are. Returned marked up with my amendments and an explanation of the changes. Three working days.

Buying online forms the engagement on payment. The scope is what the terms and conditions drafting page describes, you accept the Terms of Service at checkout, and I email you within four working hours to get started. If you would rather ask something first, email me.

What you get

• A full set of terms drafted around your business, not a template with your name inserted
• A covering note in plain English explaining every commercial choice I made and why, so you can defend the terms in a negotiation without ringing me
• Liability, payment, termination and IP provisions set at a level that will survive a procurement review
• Consumer-facing wording drafted to be enforceable where you sell to consumers
• Guidance on how to incorporate the terms properly, which is where most businesses actually fail
• One round of amendments after you have read them

What is not included

• Negotiating your terms with individual customers
• Sector-specific regulatory compliance beyond the contract terms themselves
• Website privacy notice and cookie compliance, which I quote separately
• Terms governed by the law of another country

Questions I am often asked

Can I cap my liability by weight rather than by value?

Weight-based limits are common in carriage of goods and can work well, because they are predictable and match how insurers price cover. What matters is that the limit is drawn to your customers' attention before they book, and that a sender carrying high-value goods is offered a route to greater protection by declaring the value and paying more.

My account customers send me their own supplier terms. Which set wins?

Usually the last set sent and accepted before performance begins, which on a busy operation is rarely yours. If a customer's purchase conditions arrive after your quotation, they may well displace your liability limits and payment terms. I review incoming account paperwork separately, and the covering note with your terms explains how to keep yours on top.

I use self-employed owner-drivers. Does that change the terms?

Your customer terms should permit subcontracting and make clear that you remain the contracting party, because customers will not accept a claim being deflected to a driver. Separately, you need written agreements with the drivers themselves that mirror your liability position, or you carry the loss without recourse. That is a different document from the one on this page.

Related guidance and services

• Terms and conditions drafting, £995, the service this page describes
• Contract review, £495
• Consultancy and contractor agreements, £595
• Terms and conditions for a removals company
• Terms and conditions for a commercial cleaning contractor

This page is general guidance for businesses in England and Wales, not advice on your own circumstances. Last reviewed: September 2026. Email geoffrey@caesar.co.uk.