UN/EDIFACT: the EDI language of the world (and of every container leaving port)
What UN/EDIFACT is, explained simply: the United Nations EDI standard, its ORDERS, DESADV and INVOIC messages, where it rules (Europe, ocean carriers, customs), how it differs from X12, and the equivalence table every Latin American exporter should keep at hand.
A Venezuelan cocoa exporter finally lands his first European customer. Contract signed, container booked. Then two emails arrive almost at once: the German buyer asks for orders and invoices “via EDI, ORDERS and INVOIC messages,” and the shipping line announces that booking instructions are received “in EDIFACT format.” The manager, who had already heard about American EDI and its numbers — 850, 810 — searches the emails for those numbers and finds them nowhere.
It’s not another system to learn from scratch. It’s the same concept in another language. And that language has a name: EDIFACT.
What is EDIFACT, in one sentence?
UN/EDIFACT (Electronic Data Interchange For Administration, Commerce and Transport) is the United Nations EDI syntax: the international rules for writing electronic commercial documents, published and maintained by the UN since the late 1980s precisely so that trade between countries would not depend on one single country’s standard.
As we explained with X12, a syntax is the language of the document, not the envelope that carries it — the envelope is AS2 or AS4. If X12 is the language of the Americas, EDIFACT is the Esperanto that actually worked: the neutral language adopted by nearly all the rest of the world.
Names instead of numbers
The most visible difference: where X12 numbers, EDIFACT names. The purchase order isn’t “850,” it’s ORDERS. The ship notice isn’t “856,” it’s DESADV (DESpatch ADVice). The invoice isn’t “810,” it’s INVOIC. Six-letter abbreviations, usually self-explanatory in English.
If you’ve been following this series, you can map them in your head in seconds:
| Document | X12 (Americas) | EDIFACT (world) |
|---|---|---|
| Purchase order | 850 | ORDERS |
| Advance ship notice (ASN) | 856 | DESADV |
| Invoice | 810 | INVOIC |
| Product and price catalog | 832 | PRICAT |
| Demand forecast | 830 | DELFOR |
| Shipment status | 315 | IFTSTA |
| Shipping instructions | 304 | IFTMIN |
Keep that table: it’s the bilingual dictionary that will save you hours of confusion in your first meeting with a European customer or an ocean carrier.
What does it look like inside?
Very much like X12: abbreviated segments, positional data, zero decoration. A fragment of an ORDERS:
UNH+1+ORDERS:D:96A:UN'
BGM+220+4471+9'
QTY+21:40:CS'
The differences are accent, not essence: segments end with an apostrophe instead of a tilde, data is separated with + and : instead of asterisks, and the file may begin with a UNA segment declaring which separator characters will be used (X12 has no flexible equivalent). Where X12 opens each document with ST, EDIFACT opens with UNH, which also declares the message version. Translator-level details: your EDI software handles them; you only need to know these are dialects of the same telegraphic family.
Where does EDIFACT rule?
- All of Europe: retail, manufacturing, automotive. If you sell to a European chain or to a multinational’s European subsidiary, the requirement will be EDIFACT.
- Ocean and air transport: the shipping lines (Maersk, MSC, Hapag-Lloyd) and cargo airlines speak EDIFACT globally — even on routes within the Americas. Shipping instructions, booking confirmations, container status: all EDIFACT.
- Customs: the customs systems of dozens of countries exchange declarations in EDIFACT (the CUSDEC message, among others).
The practical rule for a Venezuelan company: if your operation touches a port or crosses the Atlantic, you will see EDIFACT. Local retail will speak X12 to you; the carrier taking your container and the buyer receiving it in Rotterdam will speak EDIFACT. Many exporters end up speaking both at once, and that’s fine: that’s what translators are for.
Common myths
- “I have to choose between X12 and EDIFACT.” You don’t choose — each trading partner imposes theirs. Your internal system can be a single one; translation into each language happens at the border, automatically.
- “They’re incompatible, we’ll have to duplicate everything.” The content is identical — quantities, codes, dates; only the wording changes. A good translation engine turns ORDERS into an 850 (or into your ERP’s format) with nobody touching anything.
- “EDIFACT is more modern than X12.” It’s more international, not more modern. Both come from the same telegraphic era and both are in insolently good health. The youngest member of the family is someone else: GS1 XML — and it has its own article.
Exporting is hard enough without also fighting the languages your documents are written in. If your operation needs to speak X12 with the local chain and EDIFACT with the shipping line without duplicating systems, take a look at our solutions or get in touch.