BIC Codes

What a BIC code is

A BIC code is the three-letter owner code at the front of every ISO freight container’s identification number. It’s issued by the Bureau International des Containers — a private industry body based in Paris that has run the global container owner registry since 1969. When you see MSKU, HLBU, CMAU, or OWLU stenciled on a container’s doors, the first three letters are the BIC-registered owner code; the fourth letter is something separate (we’ll get there).

The owner code identifies the owner of the box, not the carrier who’s currently moving it. A container painted Maersk blue, leased to MSC for a single voyage, and carrying CMA CGM cargo still wears its Maersk MSKU prefix. Ownership is the permanent record; everything else is operational. For NPSA portable-storage operators buying or leasing wholesale, the prefix is the closest thing to a title deed — confirmation of where the container came from and who registered it.

The 11-character container number

BIC codes don’t exist in isolation. They’re the first piece of the full 11-character container number defined by ISO 6346:

BIC’s responsibility ends at the three-letter OWL. Everything after that is governed by ISO 6346 and assigned by the owner. Operators usually call the first four letters "the prefix" out of habit (OWLU, MSKU, HLBU), and that’s fine in conversation — but it conflates two distinct registries.

The category identifier — U, J, or Z

The fourth letter is the equipment category, defined by ISO 6346 (not by BIC). There are only three valid values:

Code	Category	Typical equipment
U	Freight container	Everything you’d recognize as a shipping container — dry, reefer, open top, flat rack, tank. Easily 99% of what you’ll ever see.
J	Detachable freight-related equipment	Removable genset modules, attachment frames, swap bodies designed to mate with a container.
Z	Trailer or chassis	The wheeled rolling stock that carries containers — flatbed chassis, gooseneck trailers.

An owner running multiple equipment types may register the same three-letter code for each category (e.g. ABCU, ABCJ, ABCZ) — that’s three separate identifiers sharing one owner.

OWLU^®, ANYU, LSEU — our three prefixes

One Way Lease, Inc. holds three BIC owner prefixes on the registry — OWLU, ANYU, and LSEU. Each is a four-letter code that indexes back to our records as the registered owner. Containers we sell or lease carry one of those three prefixes painted on the side, and every prefix is verifiable in the BIC public registry.

OWLU^® is the primary one and the one carrying the additional U.S. trademark layer. In 2026 we registered USPTO Reg. 8,259,018, issued 2026-05-19, making OWLU^® a federally protected trademark on US soil. The two registrations do different jobs. The BIC code is the global container-industry identifier; the USPTO trademark is the legal claim on the OWLU^® mark as a brand. Together they mean a container wearing OWLU^® is ours twice over — once in the equipment registry, once in trademark law. ANYU and LSEU sit at the same registry standing as OWLU^®, just without the U.S. trademark layer.

How a prefix gets registered

BIC accepts applications from anyone with a legitimate ownership interest in containerized equipment. The process is short and not technically difficult, but it’s paid and it’s permanent in practice:

1. Apply to BIC with your company details and intended equipment type
2. BIC checks the requested three-letter code for uniqueness and approves or suggests alternatives
3. Pay the annual registration fee
4. The code is published in the global registry and is yours to use on your fleet

Surrendering a prefix is rare — owners hold onto them even after fleets shrink, because re-issuing an existing prefix to a different owner would create real-world identification collisions. The registry treats prefixes as effectively permanent.

Major prefixes in circulation

A snapshot of prefixes most commonly seen on US depot lots. Not exhaustive — the authoritative lookup is BIC’s own registry ↗.

Prefix	Owner
OWLU	One Way Lease (us)
MSKU / MAEU / MRKU	Maersk
HLBU / HLXU / HLCU	Hapag-Lloyd
MSCU / MSDU / MEDU	MSC
CMAU / CGMU / CXDU	CMA CGM
EGHU / EGSU / EISU	Evergreen
ONEU / TCNU / TCLU	Ocean Network Express
CSNU / CBHU / COSU	COSCO
YMLU / YMMU	Yang Ming
HMMU / HDMU	HMM
ZIMU / ZCSU	ZIM
OOLU / OOCU	OOCL
TGHU / TRIU / TLLU	Triton (lessor)
TEMU / TGBU	Textainer (lessor)
BEAU / BSIU	Beacon (lessor)
SEGU	Seaco (lessor)

Looking up an unknown prefix

Three options, ranked by authority:

1. BIC’s official lookup at bic-code.org/bic-codes ↗. The canonical source. If BIC doesn’t list it, it’s either not registered or registered recently and not yet published.
2. Our check-digit calculator at /tools/check-digit-calculator. Type any four-letter prefix and we’ll surface the owner from our curated list of the top ~50 prefixes in active circulation, plus our OWLU^® entry. If we don’t have it, we link out to BIC.
3. Third-party aggregators like prefixlist.com and shipping-container-info.com. Useful for cross-reference. Don’t treat them as authoritative — BIC is the registry.

Why the prefix matters at your depot

For wholesale operators reselling or leasing containers downstream, the prefix is the provenance trail. A few specific reasons it’s load-bearing in our line of work:

• Repaint authority. Containers wear their owner’s brand. Repainting another carrier’s container without authorization is, at minimum, brand interference. Knowing the original owner via the prefix tells you whose permission is required (or whose fleet you’ve inadvertently bought into).
• Inspection records. CSC re-inspection histories and damage records travel with the container number, which is anchored on the prefix. Trying to research a box without its full identifier is a dead end.
• Counter-fraud. Stencils can be repainted; check digits can be miscopied; prefixes are stenciled deep and rarely overwritten. A mismatched prefix vs. owner-on-record is one of the first signs of an irregular history.
• Fleet swaps and one-way moves. When operators swap inventory or execute a one-way lease (point A to point B with no return), the prefix tells the depot which fleet to return the box to — or whether it’s been formally transferred.