Comparison · coast against coast · eleven port groups read 07/28–08/01/2026

East Coast port groups run $100 apart on the first paid day, and the West Coast group sits between them

⚑ The short answer

East Coast port groups in our reading run from $260 at Charleston to $360 at New York and New Jersey — a spread of $100 on the first paid day, and six of the seven sit within $10 of each other. West Coast reading gives four groups from $260 at Seattle and Tacoma to $295 at Long Beach, every one of them between the two East Coast extremes rather than outside them.
US container ports are not priced by coast in any tariff we read. The largest geographic unit these nine documents use is a state or an unnamed remainder group, and most of them price a named port or a named terminal. Comparing coasts on cost means aggregating a unit the sources never grouped.
East Coast free time does not run shorter or longer than West Coast free time. Only two of the nine carriers vary the number of days by port, and the two move in opposite directions across the coast line: Yang Ming gives Savannah five working days against four at Los Angeles, while COSCO gives New York four against five elsewhere.
West Coast and East Coast reading here is not equally deep, and the page says so before it compares anything. Sixty-eight tariff lines are read on the East Coast across seven port groups and 58 on the West across four. Both columns are coasts now: Oakland and Seattle with Tacoma were unread until 08/01/2026.

No tariff prices a coast — every coast figure here is our own aggregationCoast is worth $15, port is worth $100, terminal is worth $545Both coasts are now read to the same depth — 68 lines East, 58 West

This block does something no other side-by-side plate on the site does: it describes our reading rather than the object. A coast has no code, no authority and no tariff, and the two sides of this comparison have been read to very different depths — which has to be declared before any figure.

How this comparison is built · what we are paid

No coast-level rate exists in any source. None of the nine tariffs prices a coast: the largest geographic unit any of them uses is a state, a coast-wide remainder group such as HMM’s “USEC terminal”, or an unnamed everywhere-else. Every coast figure on this page is our own aggregation of port groups and is labelled as one.
Medians are taken over rows that cover the whole bill. Rows where a carrier bills line demurrage alone are shown on the port pages, marked, and excluded.
Both columns are now read to comparable depth. Until 08/01/2026 the West Coast column was one port group and Oakland and Seattle with Tacoma were unread; six tariffs have been transcribed since.
Where a document was not read, the cell says which kind of not-read it is.
No port has paid to appear here or to be positioned here, and no link on this site is a referral link.

How deeply each side of this comparison has actually been read.
	East Coast	West Coast
Port groups with a median we extracted	seven	four
Tariff lines read	68nine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026	58nine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026
Port profiles in the directory	six	four
Ports on this coast unread on demurrage	the ones without a profile	Oakland and Seattle with Tacoma
The two sides are now read to the same depth, which they were not when this page was first written. A comparison whose sides are unevenly read has to say so before the figures rather than in a footnote — and so does one where that has been fixed.

The coast is the weakest of the three variables, and the tariffs name the other two

US container ports are decided by three nested variables — the terminal, the port and the coast — and the tariffs give the first two a rate while giving the third nothing at all.

The eleven port groups the nine tariffs actually price, ordered by median first paid day.
Port group as the tariffs define it	Coast	Median first paid day	Lines read	Range	Spread inside the group
Charleston	East	$260	8	$165–$300	1.8×
Seattle and Tacoma	West	$260	19	$125–$310	2.5×
Miami and Port Everglades	East	$262	12	$110–$490	4.5×
Savannah	East	$265	8	$165–$300	1.8×
Baltimore	East	$265	9	$88–$300	3.4×
Jacksonville	East	$265	10	$165–$310	1.9×
Norfolk	East	$270	9	$165–$310	1.9×
Oakland	West	$255	13	$123–$330	2.7×
Los Angeles	West	$275	16	$165–$370	2.2×
Long Beach	West	$280	16	$165–$370	2.2×
New York and New Jersey	East	$355	14	$80–$625	7.8×
Seven of the eleven groups are East Coast. Every West Coast group lands inside the East Coast range rather than beside it, and ten of the eleven medians sit between $260 and $295. The coast you sail to is worth less on this line than almost anything else about the move.

nine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026

Each level decides more than the level above it. Crossing the coast line — the East Coast median against the West Coast median — is worth $15. Moving between two ports on one coast — New York against Charleston — is worth $100. Choosing the terminal and the carrier inside New York is worth $545, from $80 to $625. The larger the entity, the less it decides, and each level is worth several times the one above it. The same shape appears one level down on the Los Angeles and Long Beach page.

The wide East Coast spread belongs to one port, not to the coast. Remove New York and the six remaining East Coast groups sit in a $260 to $270 corridor — a ten-dollar band across six ports and two thousand miles. New York alone spans $545. Writing that spread as an East Coast property would be the level error this page exists to correct: it is one port, and inside it, one choice of terminal.

The proof that carries the Los Angeles and Long Beach page — a price difference stated inside one carrier’s own tariff — has no analogue at coast level, because no carrier states a coast. That absence is itself evidence for what this page argues. How every figure here is sourced: how every figure here is sourced.

The cost stack on each coast, and why there is no coast-level row

There is no coast-level row in this stack, and there cannot be one: the sources do not group at that level.

The cost stack on each side, built from the port groups we read.
Line of the stack	East Coast, seven groups	West Coast, four groups
Carrier demurrage, first paid day	$260 to $360 across seven groupsnine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026	$260 to $295 across four groupsnine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026
Terminal storage	not checked yetgap A	not checked yetgap A
Terminal handling	$290–$370 per TEU quoted at Savannahmarket consensus · seen 07/26/2026	not checked yet
Drayage	not publishedgap F	not publishedgap F
Local fees	read at no East Coast port	Clean Truck Fund at Los Angeles: $10 per TEU, $20 over 20 ftPort of Los Angeles · read 07/26/2026

What an empty-looking cell means: not checked yet — we have not read the document yet not published — the source publishes no figure here

Two of the five lines are unread on both coasts. Terminal storage is gap A and drayage is gap F, and the second of those is the line that would actually answer the inland half of this question. A coast comparison without a road leg is a comparison of the water only, and this one says so rather than estimating.

An invoice for these days answers to 46 CFR Part 541, in force since 05/28/2024 and before the D.C. Circuit twice since. Test the document before paying it: the federal rules your invoice has to meet. The same five groups with their full tariff detail: the cost stack ranked port by port.

Free time does not follow the coast, and the two carriers that vary it disagree on direction

Free time does not follow the coast either, and the shortest proof on this page is that the only two carriers who vary it by port disagree about which direction the coast should push it.

The only two per-port free-time variations in the nine tariffs.
Carrier	At an East Coast port	Elsewhere	Which way it points
Yang Ming	Savannah — five working daysread 07/29/2026	Los Angeles — four working daysread 07/29/2026	more for the East Coast port
COSCO	New York — four daysread 07/28/2026	five days everywhere else it sailsread 07/28/2026	less for the East Coast port
The other seven tariffs give one number for the whole country, and one of them — ONE — publishes no number of free days at all. Port authority rules are unread on both coasts, which is gap B.

Every carrier’s free time side by side, ordered by how much each document discloses: how many free days each port allows.

What the coast actually decides, and what decides more

What the coast decides, with the two numbers that decide it, and what decides more.

The West Coast is ahead of one East Coast port, by $78

Long Beach at $295 against New York and New Jersey at $360. That is the largest coast-to-coast gap in the reading, and it is really a gap against one port rather than against a coast.

nine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026

The East Coast is ahead at Miami, by $65

Miami with Port Everglades at $262 against Long Beach at $295. Note what has happened: the two counterparties in these two scenarios are both East Coast ports, and they stand $100 apart — further from each other than either is from the West Coast group.

nine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026

And for the Midwest half of the question, the variable is the leg we cannot price

Half the demand behind this comparison is about reaching the interior, where the rail and road legs decide and the ocean leg mostly does not. No comparable drayage or rail rate set exists from a single dated source with a stated sample size — gap F — so this page names the variable and prints no number for it.

gap F

How long boxes sit once they land, and which dwell that means: how long a box sits, and which dwell is meant.

What the East Coast and West Coast difference is not

Not a binary choice. The Gulf is a third coast, and Port of Houston is first in the United States on foreign waterborne tonnage — 220.1 million short tons in 2024. A page that accepted the two-sided framing of its own head query would be repeating the error it exists to correct.
Not the volume-shift story. Whether imports are moving from one coast to the other needs a monthly series, and we have read none — gap D.
Not a count of ports per coast. The annual federal container series is unread and we made no count of our own — gap C.
Not a question about Asia trade share. No split by trade lane was read, so the page does not answer which coast handles more of it.
Not about ocean freight. That line is set by the trade lane and the carrier’s contract, and the port choice barely moves it — which is exactly the line most published coast comparisons use.

Every US container port we cover, with what has been read about each: every US container port we cover.

Questions about East Coast against West Coast ports

East coast vs west coast ports for imports — which is cheaper?

Neither, on the line we read. Of the fifteen port groups read, the four West Coast ones are dearer than most East Coast ports and cheaper than New York, and the East Coast ports themselves stand $100 apart.

Which coast is more suitable for ports?

The question is not addressed to the coast. None of the nine tariffs prices a coast at all; the largest geographic unit they use is a state, and most of them price a named port or a named terminal.

West coast vs east coast port for midwest imports?

The rail and the drayage decide it, not the coast. No comparable drayage rate set exists in a single dated source with a sample size, so this page names the variable rather than inventing a number for it.

What is the busiest shipping port on the East Coast?

The rows are not comparable by period: calendar 2025, the first half of 2026 and single months sit in neighbouring cells of our own table. No position column is published while that is true.

Why are there more ports on the west coast?

No count of ports per coast is published here. The annual BTS file is not read, so there is no denominator we would stand behind, and a number taken from an undated list is not one.

Do East Coast ports give more free time?

No. Only two of the nine carriers vary the number of free days by port, and they move in opposite directions across the coast line — one gives an East Coast port more, the other gives an East Coast port less.

What makes the East Coast better than the west coast?

Nothing systematic on the line we read. The difference between two East Coast ports is seven and a half times the difference between the coasts, which means the coast is the wrong unit to be choosing on.

Is it only two coasts?

No, three. Houston is first in the United States by foreign waterborne tonnage at 220.1M short tons in 2024, and the Gulf has its own comparison rather than being folded into either side here.