--- title: "What Is an EDI 990 (Response to a Load Tender)?" url: https://www.uncap.com/glossary/edi-990 author: "Denis Dyli" published: 2026-10-28 updated: 2026-10-28 summary: "An EDI 990 is the X12 Response to a Load Tender: the transaction set used as the response to a Motor Carrier Load Tender (204) that has been used as a load tender. X12 says it can also be used to provide general information relative to a specific shipment." --- # What Is an EDI 990 (Response to a Load Tender)? > An EDI 990 is the X12 Response to a Load Tender: the transaction set used as the response to a Motor Carrier Load Tender (204) that has been used as a load tender. X12 says it can also be used to provide general information relative to a specific shipment. **EDI 990 (Response to a Load Tender)**: An EDI 990 is the X12 Response to a Load Tender: the transaction set used as the response to a Motor Carrier Load Tender (204) that has been used as a load tender. X12 says it can also be used to provide general information relative to a specific shipment. ## How it works An EDI 990 is the X12 Response to a Load Tender, the reply to the EDI 204 in which a shipper or another interested party offered a shipment to a full load (truckload) motor carrier. X12's purpose statement for the 990 is short: - What it answers: a Motor Carrier Load Tender (204) which has been used as a load tender. - What else it can carry: general information relative to a specific shipment. - Where it sits: X12 lists the 990 among the transaction sets of its Transportation subcommittee (X12I), with the 204. Estes Express Lines, a carrier that publishes its own EDI documentation, says its EDI 990 is a response from a carrier that indicates whether the load was accepted or rejected, that an accepted load indicates that Estes will handle the freight, and that it sends the 990 if requested by the customer. **Where the EDI 990 sits in a load tender** ### 1. EDI 204, Load tender A shipper or other interested party offers (tenders) a shipment to a full load (truckload) motor carrier. ### 2. EDI 990, Response The response to the 204 that was used as a load tender, with general information about the shipment. ## EDI 990 vs EDI 204 and EDI 997 The 990 is easy to confuse with the two sets around it: - 204 Motor Carrier Load Tender: the offer. It carries detailed scheduling, equipment requirements, commodities, and shipping instructions pertinent to a load tender. - 990 Response to a Load Tender: the answer to that offer. - 997 Functional Acknowledgment: a receipt for the file, not an answer to the tender. X12 says the 997 indicates the results of the syntactical analysis of the electronically encoded documents and does not cover the semantic meaning of the information encoded in the transaction sets. So a 997 reports the result of the syntax check on a 204, while the 990 is the response to the tender itself. ## Example A manufacturer has 3 truckloads to move this week and sends its carrier one 204 per load: 3 tenders. In this example the carrier sends back one 990 for each tender, 3 responses in all, and each one says whether the load was accepted or rejected, the two outcomes Estes describes for its own 990s. Here 2 loads are accepted and 1 is rejected, so 3 minus 2 = 1 load still needs a carrier. The manufacturer tenders that load again, and the cycle repeats. ## On Shopify If a load carries Shopify orders, an integration can start from their fulfillment orders. Shopify says fulfillment orders represent the work which is intended to be done in relation to an order, and that it creates fulfillment orders automatically when an order is created. Apps can retrieve all fulfillment orders with the fulfillmentOrders query. An integration that tenders loads from that work can store each carrier response on the Shopify order as custom data: - Metafields: a metafield is an extra field on an existing resource, for data that describes a product, order, customer, or other Shopify object. Shopify's own examples include a routing rule on an order. - Through the API: custom data can be queried through the GraphQL Admin API, and when an order is created with orderCreate, its input takes a list of metafields to add to the order. Recording the 990 on the order is a design choice the integration makes; it keeps the carrier's answer next to the order it ships. ## How Uncap helps [Uncap Connect](/products/connect) is the real-time data layer between Shopify, your ERP, and the warehouse floor. As Uncap puts it, the order lands in the ERP, fulfillment updates land on the storefront, and nobody retypes a thing. ## Related terms - EDI 204 (motor carrier load tender) - EDI 214 (shipment status message) - EDI 210 (motor carrier freight details and invoice) - EDI 997 (functional acknowledgment) - Bill of lading - SCAC code ## Sources - X12: 990 Response to a Load Tender - X12 Transaction Sets - Shopify Dev Docs: Custom data ## Frequently asked questions ### What is EDI 990? EDI 990 is the X12 Response to a Load Tender. It is used as the response to a Motor Carrier Load Tender (204) that has been used as a load tender, and it can also provide general information relative to a specific shipment. ### What does it mean to tender a load? To tender a load is to offer a shipment to a carrier. X12 describes the EDI 204 Motor Carrier Load Tender as the set that allows shippers or other interested parties to offer (tender) a shipment to a full load (truckload) motor carrier, and the EDI 990 as the response to it. ### What is the difference between EDI 204 and EDI 990? The EDI 204 is the load tender: the shipper's offer of a truckload shipment, with scheduling, equipment requirements, commodities and shipping instructions. The EDI 990 is the Response to a Load Tender sent back for that 204. ### Is an EDI 990 the same as a 997? No. An X12 997 Functional Acknowledgment reports the results of the syntactical analysis of the documents received and does not cover their meaning. An EDI 990 is the business response to a load tender.