What is a steamship hold and how do I clear it?

A steamship "hold" is the area where they have storage room(s) - I think.

Usually a letter of credit is only executed when the
goods are in the hands of the dealer, that is if you have
included this stipulation into your letter of credit.

Custom agens randomly hold goods in cargo until
all necessary documentations are presented from the
shipper.

Steamship Hold
Hello

The hold is placed usually when the Steamship has not received either payment of collect charges, or the OBL (orginal Bill of Lading).

Assuming that the charges were paid and the properly endorsed OBL was surrendered, the problem lies with your forwarder. Your forwarder may not have sent the release to the freight location, or could have coloaded with another forwarder that did not send a release to the freight location. Ask the freight location who has placed the hold.

In my career, I have only seen one time where a hold was caused by an overseas supplier after the OBL was surrendered. In this case the overseas supplier never paid the export fees to their overseas agent. However this is very uncommon, because this is usually tooking care of before it ever ships.

I have seen many times a freight location will say they have no steamship release, when they really mean a diffrent kind of release. I would confirm again that it is really a steamship release.

Exam holds and Customs holds are not called Steamship holds. If it was an exam you would have an Intensive, CET, USDA, Vacis, or other hold. Storage holds are called storage or demmurage holds.

Digaplay--

Welcome to A2K. You have useful information.

It is a random sample that is pulled aside by US Customs Service to xray the container your goods were shipped in, part of increased security, Customs will take their sweet time and charge you a samll fee ( ... it has happened to me several times, I have found nothing i can do but wait (a week or two)