The end of a contract, planned rather than improvised: shutdown, packing, documentation and who pays for which part of the way out.
A fleet leaving a site at the end of a contract should look almost nothing like an emergency, and yet it often does, because the exit was never planned with the same care as the arrival. Decommissioning is not a single event. It is a short sequence of steps, each producing a record, and the quality of that sequence is usually what decides whether the handover closes cleanly or turns into a dispute over what was sent, what arrived, and who was responsible for the gap in between.
Shutdown and the last readings that matter
Before anything is unracked, the operating state of the fleet should be captured while it is still verifiable: final hashrate and uptime figures, any outstanding fault or repair log, and the power draw right up to the point of shutdown. This is the last moment those numbers can be confirmed against what the site itself was measuring, and it is the reference point both sides will use later if a dispute arises over performance in the final weeks of the contract. Ask that this snapshot be taken and shared before units are powered down, not reconstructed afterwards from memory or from whichever logs happen to still be available.
Packing and palletisation
Once units are powered down and disconnected, how they are packed decides how they arrive. Units should be packed to a standard that matches how they were received, not to whatever gets boxes out the door quickly: secure palletisation, adequate protection against the kind of shock and vibration a long transit involves, and packaging that identifies what is inside without requiring a pallet to be broken open to check. Ask specifically how your host packs outgoing fleets and whether that standard is written down anywhere, rather than left to whoever is on shift that day.
Serial numbers against the original intake
A simple discipline does most of the work in a decommissioning process: check what is being shipped out against what was received at the start, unit by unit, by serial number. That intake record matters on the way in, and it matters just as much on the way out, because it is the only reliable way to confirm that every unit that arrived is also a unit that left, and that none were substituted, swapped, or quietly left behind. Ask for a reconciled list before the shipment departs, not after it has already gone.
Notice, timing and what the contract already settled
How much notice either side owes the other before a decommissioning begins, and how long the operator has to complete a return shipment once notice is given, should already be defined in the contract rather than negotiated at the point of exit. We went through that clause in detail in our piece on minimum terms and notice periods, and it is best reread before the exit rather than during it, since it is much easier to agree a fair timeline in advance than to argue about one under pressure once machines are already unracked and a replacement site is waiting.
Transport, insurance and where responsibility sits
Return shipping raises the same handoff questions as the original delivery, just in the other direction: who arranges carriage, who insures the shipment for its value while in transit, and at what point responsibility passes from the host to the carrier and then to whoever receives it at the other end. Our piece on hardware logistics across borders goes through those handoffs in more detail, and the same discipline applies whether hardware is moving in for the first time or out at the end of a contract. Ask who is responsible for each leg before the shipment leaves, not after something goes missing in transit.
Final inspection, sign-off and the closing invoice
The exit should end with an explicit step, not a quiet fade into silence. Both sides should confirm that the reconciled serial number list matches what was packed, that any outstanding invoices or credits are settled, and that a deposit or security posted at the start of the contract is returned or applied against a stated amount, with the calculation shown rather than asserted. Ask for a single closing document that ties these together: what shipped, what was confirmed received, and what the final balance is in either direction.
What to settle at the start, before you ever need it
Most of what makes an exit orderly is decided long before the exit happens, at the point the contract is signed rather than the point it ends:
- How much notice does either side owe before decommissioning begins, and how long does a return shipment take once notice is given?
- What packing and palletisation standard applies to outgoing hardware, and is it written down?
- Will a reconciled serial number list be produced against the original intake record before the shipment departs?
- Who arranges and pays for transport and insurance on the way out, and at what point does responsibility pass between parties?
- How and when is a deposit or security returned, and what does the closing invoice look like?
Asking these questions before you sign is a normal part of reviewing a hosting agreement, not a sign of expecting things to go wrong. The same minimum terms and notice periods clause that sets out how the relationship ends is the right place to have these answers written down, and the exit terms deserve exactly the same attention at signing as everything else in the contract. At Northwatt, decommissioning with secure data handling and return shipment logistics sits inside the base rate, with a decommissioning record as the evidence, as our hosting rate page sets out.
