The documents · nine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026
Nine US import demurrage tariffs read end to end, and not two of them are structured the same way
- Demurrage tariffs from nine carriers were read end to end for this site, and no two are structured alike. Eight publish a number of free days and one does not; three state the hour the clock starts and six do not; four price rail ramps separately; and one prices a single terminal and passes everything else through at cost.
- Carrier tariffs do not agree on what to call themselves. The documents we read carry Demurrage and Detention Tariff, Detention and Demurrage Tariff, Demurrage & Detention Tariff and simply Tariff and Policy, which is a large part of why they are hard to find and easy to confuse with each other.
- Hapag-Lloyd alone accounts for four separate documents in our set: a general guide, a port tariff for carrier haulage, a port tariff for merchant haulage and an inland tariff for merchant haulage. Reading one of them and assuming it covers your move is the most likely way to read the right carrier's wrong tariff.
- Tariffs saved to disk in this set carry effective dates from October 2024 to July 2026, twenty-one months apart, so the nine are not a snapshot of one moment. One expired during our reading and its successor changed exactly two lines, which is the cadence to assume when quoting any figure from them.
Demurrage, detention and per diem are three names and two charges
A carrier’s US import demurrage tariff is the document that decides what your box costs after free time — the rate, the tiers, the number of free days and, occasionally, the hour the count starts. It is public, it is filed, and almost nobody quotes it.
We read nine of them end to end, and the first finding is structural rather than numeric: not two are put together the same way. One carrier’s tariff is four separate documents. Another publishes rates without a number of free days at all. A third names one US port and passes the terminal’s charge through everywhere else. How the clock those documents govern actually runs: how the demurrage clock runs.
Which document bills you, and which one you are probably reading
What the nine documents have and have not got, counted across our own set.
How this page is built · what we are paid
- Every figure on this page comes from one of the nine documents, read directly, with the date we read it.
- The counts on this page are counts of our set, not of the market. Eight of nine, three of nine, four of nine — all of them shift the moment a tenth tariff is read.
- Where a document is in our possession and unopened, the page says so by name rather than filling the row from a neighbour.
- The axis here is the carrier. Ranking these nine by price belongs to the cost ranking, and this page does not duplicate it.
- No carrier has paid to appear here or to be described in any particular way, and no link on this site is a referral link.
| What the document does | How many of the nine | What that means for a reader | Named examples | Read |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Publishes a number of free days | eight of nine | the ninth publishes rates without one | the exception is a rate advisory rather than a full tariff | readnine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026 |
| States the hour the count starts | three of nine | the rest leave you to infer the day boundary | one names 3:00 AM at two California ports | readnine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026 |
| Prices rail ramps separately | four of nine | the ramp is cheaper per day and forgives fewer days | 160/210/260 · 160/220/250 · 165/200/230 · 190/250/280 | readnine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026 |
| States the counting convention | six of nine | three do not say whether days are calendar or working — a difference of roughly 40% over two weeks | not applicable | readnine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026 |
| Singles out a US port for free time | two of nine | and both carve-outs are on the East Coast | four days at New York with one carrier; five working days at Savannah with another | readnine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026 |
What the nine tariffs charge for the first paid day
What each of the nine actually does. This table is about documents, not about which port is cheapest.
| Carrier | What is distinctive in the document | Held on disk? |
|---|---|---|
| Maersk | states the start hour — 3:00 AM at two California ports; prices ramps separately at 190/250/280 | no — read online |
| Hapag-Lloyd | four separate documents, split by haulage type and by place; ramps get the grounding day plus two working days | yes |
| CMA CGM | rail free time of three days against four at the port; a 45-foot box priced up to $900 at New York | yes |
| ZIM | ramp rates at 165/200/230; bills line demurrage only at three New York terminals | yes |
| MSC | publishes a rate for one US port only and passes the terminal’s charge through at cost at fifteen named terminals | yes |
| COSCO | five free days generally and four at New York — the only port-specific free-time exception in the nine | yes |
| HMM | the one revision we caught: the successor amendment moved two lines and left twelve groups untouched; $1,000 from day 30 at New York | no — read online |
| Yang Ming | publishes port by port, with five working days free at Savannah against four in California | no — read online |
| ONE | publishes no number of free days at all in the advisory we read; $640 on days 10–29 and $870 from day 30 for a 45-foot box | no — read online |
| Four of the nine were never saved to disk. At the next recount they have to be located again — an operational debt rather than a data gap, and it is recorded here so it is not forgotten. | ||
nine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026
How many free days each of the nine gives, ordered by how much each document discloses: how many free days each port allows.
Checking an invoice against the tariff it came from
These documents set the charge; a federal rule sets how it may be billed. Demurrage and detention invoices in US trade answer to 46 CFR Part 541, in force since 05/28/2024 and before the D.C. Circuit twice since — the decision of 09/29/2025 changed who may be billed. Read the current text at eCFR rather than a summary of the 2024 announcement.
How to test the invoice you have received: the federal rules your invoice has to meet.
Descriptive, not legal advice.
How to find the tariff that actually covers your move
Reading your own carrier’s tariff takes about twenty minutes and answers most of what this site exists to answer. In order:
- Find the document by name, with its effective date. Ask your forwarder or the carrier for the US import demurrage and detention tariff. The names vary — demurrage and detention, detention and demurrage, tariff and policy — and they mean the same class of document.
- Check which document applies to your haulage type. One of the nine splits its tariff four ways by carrier haulage against merchant haulage and port against inland. If yours does the same, three of the four are irrelevant to you.
- Find the group your port falls into. Most of these documents price groups rather than named ports. If your port is not listed, you are in a residual group — and that group’s definition is the whole basis of your rate.
- Read the free time and its convention. Days, and whether they are calendar or working. Three of the nine do not say, and over two weeks the difference is roughly 40%.
- Find the tier structure, not just the first rate. Every one of the nine steps up, and they step at different days. The first paid day is the cheapest day you will have.
- Check the effective date and whether a successor is filed. We caught one tariff expiring on the last day of a month with its successor already on file for the next. If your invoice spans that date, ask which edition was applied.
Where a carrier's headline tariff does not apply
Four things these documents do not contain, and one that is not a shipping company at all.
- No terminal storage. Not one of the nine contains it. That is the boundary of the document — terminal storage is the terminal’s charge on the terminal’s tariff — rather than a hole in our reading. One caveat we added on 01/08/2026, because the word alone will mislead you: one of the nine does publish a storage rate — CMA CGM, $175 per container per day after one free day — but it is storage in a trucker’s yard, the carrier’s charge for its own box parked off the terminal, and it is a different charge in a different place from the terminal’s. Four of the nine go the other way and say plainly that the terminal will invoice storage itself: Hapag-Lloyd at fourteen terminals across thirteen cities, COSCO at five named entries, ZIM at four ports plus the rail ramps, and CMA CGM at Baltimore alone — the one water-port page in its file that drops the sentence the other thirteen carry, that a US water-port demurrage charge already includes storage.
- No chassis charge. Same reason: the equipment belongs to a pool that is not a party to the contract of carriage — what the chassis adds to the bill.
- No drayage. The road leg is quoted, not tariffed.
- No per-port ranking. These documents price groups, and turning nine documents into a league table of ports is a different page.
- And not a retailer. Three of the ten questions above these results are about a warehouse chain whose name differs from one of these carriers by a letter. Nothing here is about it.
See alsowhen the ship skips your port →what to do when the box will not move →
What the market publishes about carrier tariffs
The market offers to calculate this charge rather than to show you the document that sets it. These are our own counts.
| What we measured | Value |
|---|---|
| What the related searches are dominated by | calculators and trackers — and one entry asking for the tariff as a PDF, because the primary document does not surface first |
| Questions above the results that are on subject | roughly four of ten — three are about a retailer whose name differs from one carrier by a letter, and two are about the Panama Canal |
| Names the same class of document goes by | demurrage and detention, detention and demurrage, tariff and policy — four spellings of one thing |
| Tariffs we read end to end | nine |
| Tariffs in our own directory that we have not read | one, and it is named on this page |
our own capture of the carrier tariff queries, Google US, 07/26/2026
People search for the PDF because the document itself is buried under summaries of it. That is the gap this page occupies, and the honest form of filling it is to say what each document contains rather than to retype its rates.
The second invoice these tariffs do not cover
Everything these documents do not cover has to come from somewhere else, and the equipment under the box is the clearest case of it — linked above.
What these ten tariffs are not
- Not legal advice. A description of a federal rule is a description of it, and the rule as in force on your date governs.
- Not a quote. The tariff and the bill of lading in your own file decide what you owe, not a number on this page.
- Not a filing service. We do not act for you, contact your carrier, or take a share of anything recovered.
Questions about carrier demurrage tariffs
What is the Maersk demurrage tariff in the USA?
Four days of free time, with the count starting at 3:00 AM at Los Angeles and Long Beach — Maersk is the only one of the nine to name an hour. Rail ramps are priced separately at 190, 250 and 280 by tier.
How do I avoid demurrage by reading the right tariff?
Find the right document and the right line before the vessel arrives. Half the mistakes we see are not about the rate but about reading a tariff that does not cover the move in question.
What is 14 days free detention and demurrage?
Not a tariff provision but a negotiated concession. No such number appears in any of the nine documents we read, where the published figures are four days and five.
Where do I find Hapag-Lloyd demurrage charges for the USA?
In one of four documents: port or inland, carrier haulage or merchant haulage. The general guide in our set is fifteen months older than the rate tables it introduces, so check the date as well as the title.
What is COSCO demurrage in the USA?
Five free days, four at New York — the only port any of the nine singles out for free time. Its tiers are counted from the day of discharge including the free time, which is a different convention from most of the others.
What is MSC demurrage and detention in the USA?
There is no general rate. MSC publishes a figure for Port Everglades only and passes the terminal demurrage through at cost at fifteen named terminals, so what you pay depends on the terminal rather than on the carrier.
What is the ONE line demurrage tariff?
ONE does not publish a number of free days at all in Advisory 106 — the only one of the nine that does not. Its advisory does note that California counts terminal working days.
What are Evergreen detention charges in the USA?
We have not read that tariff. The document is in our working directory and the reading has not been done, so the row stands as unread rather than being filled from elsewhere.
These nine documents are the foundation under most of the numbers on this site. What they cost by port is a ranking; what they do to a box that has stopped moving is the pair of pages linked above.