LDP Full Form: Landed Duty Paid — LDP Meaning in Shipping, DDP vs LDP, and the EXW-to-Landed Formula

LDP — Landed Duty Paid — means the supplier's quoted price already includes the goods, international freight, customs duty and tariffs, clearance, and delivery to your door. You'll see it constantly in apparel and footwear sourcing, yet it isn't in the official Incoterms rulebook at all. This guide covers what LDP actually commits the supplier to, how it differs from DDP and EXW, what an "ex-factory" price includes, and the formula for building your own landed number from a unit EXW quote so you can tell whether an LDP price is fair.

What Does LDP (Landed Duty Paid) Mean?

The full form of LDP in shipping and logistics is Landed Duty Paid. It is a commercial pricing term, not an official Incoterm. When a supplier quotes "LDP New Jersey" at $8.40 a unit, they are saying: that price covers the product, ocean or air freight, import duty and any additional tariffs, customs clearance, and inland delivery to the named point. Nothing further should appear on your invoice. An LDP cost (or LDP price) is therefore that all-inclusive, duty-paid per-unit number — the supplier's landed-cost quote, as opposed to a bare factory price.

Because LDP isn't defined by the ICC (the body that publishes Incoterms), its exact scope is whatever the contract says. In practice most LDP deals are executed like DDP — but "most" is doing real work in that sentence, which is why the checklist at the end of this guide matters.

DDP vs LDP: Is There Actually a Difference?

DDP vs LDP in one sentence: both put freight, duty, clearance and delivery on the supplier — DDP is the official ICC Incoterm with a rulebook behind it, while LDP is a commercial term (common in apparel and footwear) that means only what your contract says.

	LDP (Landed Duty Paid)	DDP (Delivered Duty Paid)
Status	Trade/commercial term, common in apparel & footwear	Official Incoterm (ICC, Incoterms 2020)
What the price includes	Goods + freight + duty/tariffs + clearance + delivery	Same
Definition source	Your contract — no standard rulebook	Incoterms 2020 rules
Importer of record	Usually the supplier's agent, but varies by deal	Seller handles import formalities
Where you'll see it	US fashion, footwear, accessories sourcing	Any industry, worldwide

Functionally, LDP and DDP put the same costs on the supplier. The practical difference is legal precision: DDP imports a full set of ICC rules on risk transfer and responsibilities; LDP means only what your purchase order says it means. If a dispute arises over who owed a Section 301 tariff increase that landed mid-order, a DDP contract has a rulebook behind it — an LDP deal has whatever you wrote down.

One risk the label doesn't remove under either term: classification and valuation risk. If the supplier's broker misclassifies the HS code or undervalues entries and you are the importer of record, the penalty exposure can still reach you. On who legally owes tariffs, the importer of record is always the answer — so establish who that is on every LDP order.

Ex-Factory Cost and the Unit EXW Price

At the opposite end of the spectrum from LDP sits the ex-factory cost (also written ex-works, or EXW — this one is an official Incoterm). An ex-factory price covers exactly one thing: the goods, packaged and made available at the factory door. Every cost after the factory gate is yours:

Inland transport from factory to origin port
Export clearance and origin handling
Ocean or air freight and insurance
Customs duty, plus additional tariffs (Section 301, Section 232) where applicable
Entry, broker, and port fees; then inland delivery

The unit EXW price is simply that ex-factory price divided per unit — the cleanest number for comparing what different factories charge for the product itself, because nothing about freight or duty is mixed in. It is also the worst number to put in a margin calculation as-is, because it is the furthest from what the goods will really cost you.

The EXW Formula: From Ex-Factory Price to Landed (or LDP-Equivalent) Cost

To judge an LDP quote — or to build your own landed number from a factory quote — run the EXW build-up:

Landed cost = EXW price + origin inland freight + export clearance + international freight + insurance + (duty rate × customs value) + additional tariffs + entry/broker fees + destination handling + final delivery

Per unit, a compact version:

Unit landed cost = unit EXW price + (freight + insurance per unit) + (duty & tariffs per unit) + (fees + delivery per unit)

Worked example, 1,000 units at $6.00 EXW Guangzhou:

Cost leg	Amount
EXW goods (1,000 × $6.00)	$6,000
Inland to port + export clearance	$450
Ocean freight (LCL) + insurance	$1,300
Duty at 8% + Section 301 at 25% (on ~$6,450 customs value)	$2,129
Entry, broker, MPF/HMF, port fees	$400
Delivery to warehouse	$500
Landed total / per unit	$10,779 /$ 10.78

That $6.00 "unit price" is really a$ 10.78 unit cost — a 79% uplift. Now an LDP quote of, say, $11.25 from the same region reads very differently: the supplier is charging roughly$ 0.47 a unit to take on freight booking, duty payment, and delivery. That may be worth it; a $13.50 LDP quote against the same math is padding. The FOB-to-landed version of this build-up works the same way from a port-side quote, and our step-by-step landed cost guide breaks down each leg in detail.

When an LDP Quote Makes Sense — and When It Doesn't

LDP works in your favor when:

You're new to importing and don't yet have a broker or freight forwarder relationship.
The supplier consolidates many buyers' cargo and genuinely gets better freight rates than you can.
You want a fixed, predictable unit cost in a volatile tariff period and the supplier will hold the price in writing.

Prefer FOB or EXW and run the math yourself when:

Volumes are large enough that freight and brokerage are worth controlling.
Your product has FTA savings available (e.g. USMCA qualification) that a supplier's flat LDP price won't pass through.
You can't verify the supplier's duty math — an opaque LDP price often hides both the tariff assumption and the margin on it.

LDP Checklist Before You Sign

Name the importer of record in writing. This decides who carries classification, valuation, and penalty risk.
Get the assumed HS code and duty/tariff rates behind the price. If tariffs change mid-order, you need to know what was baked in.
Agree what happens if tariff rates change between order and entry — fixed price, shared adjustment, or pass-through.
Confirm the named delivery point — "LDP" to a port warehouse is a different price than LDP to your DC.
Model the EXW or FOB build-up yourself anyway. The gap between your modeled landed cost and the LDP quote is your negotiating room.

Run Your Import Analysis →

ImportCostPro's calculator (or the EU version) builds the full landed cost from an EXW or FOB quote — current duty rates, Section 301/232 exposure, freight estimates, and FTA savings included — so you can see in one screen whether an LDP price is a fair one.

Seeing "LDP" in Flipkart or Courier Tracking? That's a Different LDP

A lot of searches for LDP come from package-tracking status lines such as "bag received at LDP" on Flipkart (Ekart) and other Indian courier networks. That LDP is not Landed Duty Paid. In courier tracking, LDP refers to the local last-mile delivery hub that serves the delivery address: "bag received at LDP" means the sealed sorting bag containing the parcel has arrived at that local facility, which normally puts the order one scan away from "out for delivery". No customs duty is involved, and nothing in this guide applies to it — for the status of such a parcel, use the courier's own tracking page or support. The LDP covered here is the trade-pricing term used in importing and wholesale sourcing.