DHL Paket MCP Server: Shipments, Labels and Manifests

💡 No install? Use cloud.anythingmcp.com directly. Sign in, click Connectors → DHL Paket Versand (Geschäftskunden), paste your credentials, mint an MCP API key and you're done. No Docker, no git clone, no local server.

DHL Parcel DE Shipping

Book DHL Paket shipments from your AI on your own DHL business customer contract (Geschäftskundenkonto) with the official Parcel DE Shipping API v2: check shipments before booking, book them and get tracking numbers and labels, download labels again, cancel shipments, run the daily close-out (Tagesabschluss) and get the manifest.

Setup

Setting up takes about 15 minutes, plus the time DHL needs to approve your app. You need a DHL business customer contract with access to the DHL Geschäftskundenportal (GKP) and an account on developer.dhl.com.

1. At developer.dhl.com open My Apps → Create App and add the API Parcel DE Shipping (Post & Parcel Germany). Once DHL has approved the app, copy its API Key into DHL_API_KEY and its API Secret into DHL_API_SECRET.
2. In the Geschäftskundenportal, choose a user that may create shipments and put its user name into DHL_GKP_USERNAME and its password into DHL_GKP_PASSWORD. A dedicated system user is best: Benutzerverwaltung → Systembenutzer anlegen. A personal GKP user also works, but its password expires regularly.
3. Install the connector. There is no Authorize with Provider step: AnythingMCP exchanges the four values for an access token (OAuth2 password grant) and renews it by itself.
4. Look up your billing numbers in the GKP under Vertragsdaten, then try dhl_parcel_de_validate_shipments with a test shipment: DHL checks it like a real booking, but nothing is created or billed.

Billing number (Abrechnungsnummer): every shipment needs a 14-character billingNumber: your 10-digit customer number (EKP), the 2-digit procedure of the product and the 2-digit participation (Teilnahme, usually 01). For DHL Paket (procedure 01) with participation 01, that is your EKP followed by 0101. Tell the AI your EKP once and it builds the number.

Products: V01PAK DHL Paket (procedure 01), V62KP DHL Kleinpaket (62, replaces Warenpost), V53WPAK DHL Paket International (53), V54EPAK DHL Europaket for business customers in Europe (54) and V66WPI Warenpost International (66). Which services you can add (preferred neighbour, preferred location or day, named person only, no neighbour delivery, visual check of age, signature of the recipient, additional insurance, cash on delivery, bulky goods, Premium, GoGreen Plus, DHL Retoure, parcel outlet routing) depends on the product and your contract.

What it does:

• dhl_parcel_de_validate_shipments checks addresses, product, services and billing number and returns the same messages a booking would. Nothing is created or billed.
• dhl_parcel_de_create_shipments books up to 30 shipments per call and returns each shipment number (the tracking number) with its label, as a link or, with includeDocs: include, as base64. DHL bills every booked shipment unless it is cancelled the same day, so the AI asks you before booking and validates new data first.
• dhl_parcel_de_get_labels downloads labels and customs documents again, for up to 30 shipment numbers.
• dhl_parcel_de_cancel_shipments cancels shipments that have not been closed out yet, usually until the end of the day. A cancelled shipment is not billed and its label becomes invalid.
• dhl_parcel_de_close_out closes out (Tagesabschluss) some or all shipments now instead of waiting for the automatic close-out in the evening. Closed-out shipments can no longer be cancelled.
• dhl_parcel_de_get_manifest returns the manifest (Einlieferungsliste) of a day: the PDF listing the closed-out shipments by billing number, and which shipment is on which sheet.

All 6 tools install switched on, including the ones that book, cancel and close out shipments. If the AI should only check shipment data, switch off dhl_parcel_de_create_shipments, dhl_parcel_de_cancel_shipments and dhl_parcel_de_close_out on the connector page.

Reading the answer: the response has a status and an items list with one entry per shipment, in request order. HTTP 207 means some shipments failed: each item's sstatus and validationMessages say why. A weak address warning ("Die Adresse konnte nicht geprüft werden") still books the shipment; with mustEncode: true DHL refuses addresses it cannot encode.

Tracking: to follow a booked shipment, use the DHL Shipment Tracking connector with the shipment number.

Limits: up to 30 shipments per request. DHL answers 429 when calls come too fast: wait a moment and try again.

Common errors: 401 means DHL refused the login. Check that DHL_API_KEY and DHL_API_SECRET belong to an approved app that has the Parcel DE Shipping API, and that the GKP user name and password are right. A personal GKP password expires and has to be renewed in the portal.

Prerequisites: DHL_API_KEY, DHL_API_SECRET, DHL_GKP_USERNAME, DHL_GKP_PASSWORD

Install the connector locally

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/HelpCode-ai/anythingmcp/main/docker-compose.quickstart.yml -o docker-compose.yml
printf 'JWT_SECRET=%s\nENCRYPTION_KEY=%s\n' "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" "$(openssl rand -hex 32)" > .env
docker compose up -d

Open http://localhost:3000/connectors/store, pick DHL Paket Versand (Geschäftskunden) and paste in the env vars listed under Prerequisites.

Available tools

Example prompts

• "Validate a DHL Paket of 2 kg to Anna Schmidt, Hauptstraße 5, 79098 Freiburg, without booking it."
• "Book the shipment and give me the tracking number and the link to the label."
• "Cancel shipment 00340434161234567890, the customer cancelled the order."
• "Run today's close-out and give me the manifest."
• "Download the labels for these three shipment numbers again."

Next steps

• Connect to Claude
• Connect to ChatGPT