What is Mode of Delivery?
Mode of delivery, sometimes called mode of transport, describes the route by which an export reaches the buyer. For goods, the answer is physical: by air, by sea, over land or by post and courier. For services, delivery is usually digital. A consultant sends a report by email, a developer pushes code to a client's repository, a designer shares files on a cloud drive, a support team answers tickets in the client's system. All of that is delivery over the internet.
Why it matters for exporters
Field 1.4 in Part 1 of the EDF asks for this, with six options: Air, Land, Sea, Post/Courier, Internet and Others. For services delivered online, which covers most IT, design, consulting, content and back-office work, the right choice is Internet.
"Others" is for the less common cases, for example where your team travels abroad and performs the service on the client's premises, or where delivery happens in a way that is not mainly online. Post/Courier is rare for services, though it could apply if, say, you physically send printed deliverables; in that case note that Part 3 of the EDF deals with exports by post or courier through foreign post offices, which is usually not applicable to services.
Picking a mode that clearly does not fit, such as "Sea" for a software project, invites questions from the bank.
Example
Ridgeview Tech Pvt Ltd provides remote cloud monitoring to a US hospital chain and selects Internet in field 1.4. Its sister firm, Ridgeview Field Services LLP, sends two engineers to Oman for a month to commission equipment at a client site; for that invoice it selects Others and describes the on-site work in field 1.21. Both prepared their forms using the EDF form generator.
Common confusion
Mode of delivery is not the same as mode of realisation, which is about how you get paid. Read why Internet is usually right for more examples.