Carrier Lookup

Listing an Account’s Available Carriers — Non-Visual Shipping API Quick Start Guide

What is Carrier Lookup?

The Carrier Lookup call returns the set of shipping carriers that a specific ShipRush account can use. You POST an empty request, authenticated with that account’s shipping token, and get back a list of carrier codes. Because the response is scoped by the token, it reflects exactly what that account has configured — not a generic master list.

The endpoint is POST /shipmentservice.svc/shipment/lookup/carriers, part of the Non-Visual Shipping API (the XML shipping API). It is the natural first step before looking up services or rating a shipment: get the account’s carriers, then call lookup/services for each carrier to see what shipping services are available.

When to Use This

You need to know which carriers an account has set up before rating or shipping.
You are building a UI that lets the shipper pick a carrier and want to populate the list dynamically.
You want to validate that a required carrier (e.g. FedEx, USPS) is configured on the account.
You want the authoritative, per-account list rather than hard-coding carrier codes — pair this with lookup/services for services.

Prerequisites

An active Descartes ShipRush Web account with at least one carrier configured.
A Shipping Token (X-SHIPRUSH-SHIPPING-TOKEN) for that account.
A Developer Token (X-SHIPRUSH-DEVELOPER-TOKEN) issued to your developer account.
An HTTP client able to POST XML (any language; a C# example is included).

Step 1 — Get Your Tokens

Shipping labels are tied to a shipping account and incur real charges, so token issuance takes a few steps:

Set up a ShipRush Web account with one or more shipping accounts (done by the shipper or an authorized agent).
Enable Two-Factor Authentication: Settings → User Settings → Change Password → enable 2-Step verification.
Request access: Settings → User Settings → Developer Tokens → apply to the Shipping Developer Program. Approval arrives by email, usually within one or two business days.
Retrieve your shipping token: Settings → User Settings → Developer Tokens → Show Token.

Heads up: The shipping token is shown only once and can ship against real shipping accounts — store it securely, like a password. Tokens are system-specific: a sandbox token does not work in production, and vice versa.

Step 2 — Know the Endpoint

Method & path: POST /shipmentservice.svc/shipment/lookup/carriers

Base URL (prepend to the path above):

Production: https://api.my.shiprush.com
Sandbox: https://sandbox.api.my.shiprush.com

Required and optional HTTP headers:

Header	Required	Value
X-SHIPRUSH-SHIPPING-TOKEN	Yes	Your account's shipping token (see Step 1). Scopes the response to that account.
X-SHIPRUSH-DEVELOPER-TOKEN	Yes	Your developer/application token, issued to your developer account.
Content-Type	Yes	application/xml (or text/xml)
Accept-Encoding	Yes	gzip, deflate — your client must accept compressed responses.
User-Agent	Yes	Identifies your app clearly, e.g. Acme-OrderSystem. Spaces → hyphen/underscore.
X-SHIPRUSH-VERSION	No	Desired XML response version, e.g. 84114. Omit to use the server default.
User-Agent-Version	No	Full build of your app, e.g. 1.0.0.1234.

Step 3 — Build and POST the Request

The request body is a GetCarrierTypesRequest element with no content. You do not pass a carrier — the account (via its shipping token) determines which carriers come back.

Request body:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<GetCarrierTypesRequest />

Step 4 — Read the Response

A valid call returns HTTP 200. The carriers come back inside CarrierTypes as a list of TCarrierType codes. Inspect <IsSuccess> and <Messages> to confirm the operation actually succeeded.

Sample response (an account with FedEx, USPS, and ShipRush USPS configured):

Each code maps to a carrier as follows. The account returns only the codes it has configured; the table below is the full master enum for reference.

Code	Carrier	Code	Carrier
0	UPS	24	EasyPost APC
1	FedEx	25	EasyPost RRD
2	DHL	26	EasyPost Asendia
3	USPS	27	EasyPost Globegistics
4	Endicia	28	EasyPost DHL Intl
5	Stamps	29	DHL eC
6	USS Prefership	30	Amazon FBA
7	Unknown	31	Banyan
8	FedEx FIMS	32	FirstMile
9	Direct Link	33	PlainLabel
10	Amazon	34	Canada Post
11	MailView	35	DHL Paket
12	Pitney Bowes	36	LSO
13	WWEX	37	L5
14	WWEX LTL	38	Canpar
15	Deliv	39	Newgistics
16	OnTrac	40	ChitChats
17	ShipRush USPS	41	Hogwarts Post
18	EasyPost USPS	42	Amazon Shipping
19	MailView v2	43	TNT Express
20	FIMS2	44	NZ Couriers
21	Direct Link v2	45	GLS
22	Project44	46	Paquet Express
23	EasyPost DHL	999	Parcel Partners

Note: Codes 7 (Unknown) and 41 (Hogwarts Post) are internal/placeholder values and will not appear for a real account. Treat any code your app doesn’t recognize as “unsupported” rather than failing.

Step 5 — Handle Errors

The Non-Visual Shipping API uses a two-level result model:

HTTP 200 — the call was structurally accepted. Read <IsSuccess> / <Messages> in the body for the real outcome.
HTTP 401 — authentication failed (bad or missing token).
HTTP 500 — a structural or authentication failure. The body is a JSON error object, not the XML response.

C# / .NET Example

Posts the empty request, prints the HTTP status, then parses the carrier codes. Swap in your tokens and switch the base URL to production when ready.

using System;
using System.Net.Http;
using System.Text;
using System.Threading.Tasks;
using System.Xml.Linq;

class ShipRushCarrierLookup
{
// Sandbox base URL. For production use https://api.my.shiprush.com
const string BaseUrl = "https://sandbox.api.my.shiprush.com";
const string ShippingToken = "YOUR-SHIPPING-TOKEN-GUID";
const string DeveloperToken = "YOUR-DEVELOPER-TOKEN";

static async Task Main()
{
// The request body is an empty element - no CarrierType is supplied.
const string requestXml =
"<?xml version=\"1.0\" encoding=\"utf-8\"?><GetCarrierTypesRequest />";

using var client = new HttpClient();
var req = new HttpRequestMessage(
HttpMethod.Post,
$"{BaseUrl}/shipmentservice.svc/shipment/lookup/carriers");

req.Headers.Add("X-SHIPRUSH-SHIPPING-TOKEN", ShippingToken);
req.Headers.Add("X-SHIPRUSH-DEVELOPER-TOKEN", DeveloperToken);
req.Headers.Add("Accept-Encoding", "gzip, deflate");
req.Headers.UserAgent.ParseAdd("Acme-OrderSystem/1.0");
req.Content = new StringContent(requestXml, Encoding.UTF8, "application/xml");

var resp = await client.SendAsync(req);
var body = await resp.Content.ReadAsStringAsync();
Console.WriteLine($"HTTP {(int)resp.StatusCode}");

// HTTP 500 = structural/auth failure. On 200, inspect the body.
var doc = XDocument.Parse(body);
foreach (var c in doc.Descendants("TCarrierType"))
Console.WriteLine($"Carrier code: {c.Value} -> {CarrierName(c.Value)}");
}

static string CarrierName(string code) => code switch
{
"1" => "FedEx",
"3" => "USPS",
"12" => "Pitney Bowes",
"17" => "ShipRush USPS",
_ => "(see carrier code table)"
};
}

Prefer a wrapper? The ShipRush .NET SDK ships proxy assemblies (ShipRush.SDK.Proxies.dll, ShipRush.BusinessLayer.dll) you can reference instead of hand-rolling the HTTP call.

Quick Reference

The Call at a Glance

Endpoint: POST /shipmentservice.svc/shipment/lookup/carriers
Request body: <GetCarrierTypesRequest /> (empty)
Response: <GetCarrierTypesResponse><CarrierTypes>…</CarrierTypes></GetCarrierTypesResponse>
Auth: X-SHIPRUSH-SHIPPING-TOKEN + X-SHIPRUSH-DEVELOPER-TOKEN headers.

Next Steps

For each returned carrier, call POST /shipmentservice.svc/shipment/lookup/services with a <CarrierType> to list that carrier’s services.
Then lookup/packaging (carrier + service) for packaging options, and shipment/rate to price a shipment.