Cross-border Shipping

Shipping cross-border with Kansas City Southern provides unique competitive advantages

Kansas City Southern offers a seamless and efficient transportation option to cross the U.S.-Mexico border. When you ship with us, you can take advantage of:

• Customs pre-clearance allowing for faster, lower cost, cross-border service than trucks can offer.
• Advanced security measures including surveillance equipment and trained specialists along the route from origin to destination.
• Network operating centers located in the U.S. and in Mexico keeping our trains and your shipments moving fluidly both north and southbound.
• 24/7 access to your account via the MyKCS online tool.
• Extended reach and end-to-end shipping throughout North America through strategic partnerships with other railroads, transload centers, intermodal facilities, ports, customs brokers, etc.

Cross-border shipping made easy

Kansas City Southern is THE cross-border railroad for freight shipping within North America. With expertise in the United States and Mexico, as well as partners throughout North America, rail freight shipping with KCS is easy and secure.

We have industry-leading security measures in place 24/7 in Mexico. This allows your shipments to move safely and securely throughout Mexico, across the secure border, and into the United States. That is why we have a low claims rate for our cross-border shipments at .02% of all cross-border shipments. That means that 99.98% of our cross-border shipments are claim free.* Security of our shipments is always of top priority for both domestic and cross-border shipments.  

Once your shipments arrive to the border – southbound or northbound – we have a cross-border customs clearance process designed to be efficient. With our customs’ pre-clearance, our #1 goal is for our cross-border trains to spend as little time idle at the border as possible. There is well-documented congestion for trucks crossing the border and we have worked hard to ensure our innovative customs processes and procedures, all in collaboration with customs agents on both sides of the border, allow for a fast yet secure customs clearance. This allows our shippers to rest comfortably that their cross-border shipments are in very capable hands. 

Our goal at Kansas City Southern is to provide you end-to-end cross-border shipping so we’ve established strong partnerships with facilities along our network who can provide you additional services. Whether you need a transload facility, intermodal facility, automotive facility, or another provider, we can help connect you with the service that you need.  For a view of our partners, please visit our network map.

Shipping freight to or from Mexico has never been easier. 

*2020