DHL contract activation Germany 🇩🇪 – Sendcloud Help Center

Purpose: Learn how to connect your DHL carrier contract with your Sendcloud account in three easy steps.

Become a DHL customer now! The only requirement is a valid DHL business customer contract, which you can obtain directly here, with a minimum of 200 national and/or international parcels per year.

Step 1: Activate your Sendcloud subscription

Sendcloud offers three subscriptions with which you are able to use your own transport contract: Lite, Growth and Premium plan.

For more information regarding which plan is best for you and the needs of your business, you can always contact us via the support section of your Sendcloud account or click here.

Step 2: Enable your carrier contract

Once you have activated a Sendcloud subscription, you can connect your carrier contract.

In your Sendcloud panel navigate to Settings > Carriers & Pricing.
Go to the My contracts tab and find DHL from the list.
Click Add contract. Here you can add the credentials needed to validate the connection to DHL.

Step 3: Enter your DHL contract details

Complete the form with the information below and click Save when you are done.

The following credentials can be obtained by requesting an account and shipping contract at the website of DHL. Once you receive the contract and the credentials of the DHL Business Customer Portal, you need to ask your DHL-sales-consultant for the tracking credentials.

DHL Business Customer Portal Username
- The username which you use for the DHL Business portal (Geschäftskundenportal)
DHL Business Customer Portal Password
- The password which you use for the DHL Business portal (Geschäftskundenportal)
You can choose to enable DHL address validation to help avoid relabelling fees if an address is not correct
Label format (this must be added so that the correct label format can be selected).
- You can find the format in the DHL Geschäftskundenportal > Parcel & Products > Shipping > Settings > General settings. Make sure to select the same format in Sendcloud. For more information, please check this help center article.
Shipper Reference
- Based on the shipper reference, DHL retrieves your logo to be printed on the label. You can create/find the reference in the DHL Business Customer Portal > Parcel & Products > Shipping > Address book > Sender.
Billing number Paket
- You can find the billing numbers in the DHL Business portal (Name of your account > Contract data)
Billing number Paket International
Billing number Warenpost National
Billing number Warenpost Gogreen
Billing number Warenpost/International/International Premium
Billing number Warenpost International Gogreen
Billing number Europaket
Returns & Receiver ID
- You will find the respective names of the return recipients (Receiver ID) listed in the DHL customer portal under the menu item Returns > Settings under the entry Receiver ID.

Important: Since your contract and the relevant shipping methods are individual, please make sure that the shipping methods you have agreed upon are activated with us. Please note that this does not happen automatically. If you do not see the shipping methods, please contact our support / Live Chat.

Step 4: Enable domestic and international returns

In order to be able to receive returns from different countries, please retrieve the country Receiver ID which can be found in the DHL business customer portal.

Note: The Receiver ID overrides the return address information you add in Sendcloud. The return address that's linked to your Receiver ID will be printed on the labels.

Go to DHL Geschäftskundenportal > Parcel & Products > Returns > Settings.
In the Receiver and country overview, your account manager will define all countries from which you want to receive returns (per country = one line).
Copy the Receiver ID to the Sendcloud contract settings for each country that you want to enable returns for. In the example below, under the outlined yellow box you can see the Receiver ID is here named as "BE" for returns to Belgium.
In your Sendcloud account, navigate to Settings > Carriers & Pricing > My contracts > DHL DE
Scroll down the page until you see the Returns section on the DHL DE contract settings page
Select your return country from the dropdown menu and then enter the Receiver ID exactly as it appears in your DHL portal
To add additional countries, click ± and repeat the process
Press the Save button when all countries are added

Once you have filled in the receiver ID’s per country in the Sendcloud contract settings the following methods are supported on the Sendcloud platform:

DHL Retoure (formally DHL Paket Return) and DHL Mobile Retoure (formally DHL Retoure Online).

DHL Paket Servicepoint routing
With the Servicepoint routing, you have the option of redirecting the shipment to the nearest DHL Servicepoint in case the shipment cannot be delivered or because the customer's specified address cannot be located. The customer can easily pick up his shipment at the DHL Servicepoint.

Please be sure to enter the recipient or sender's email address for the notification so that the customer can be informed accordingly.

Once you've followed the steps above, your DHL contract should now be successfully linked to your Sendcloud platform and you can begin shipping on your DHL rates. When you create a label with a DHL shipping method, the label price will now show as 0.00 EUR in your account.