Definition · four fields that all say “port” · read 07/26/2026
Port of entry, port of discharge, port of unlading and place of delivery are four different fields
- Port of entry and port of discharge are two of four fields, not two of two. Your paperwork also carries a port of unlading and a place of delivery, and a fifth identifier — the FIRMS code — points at a facility rather than at a port at all.
- Port of entry does not have to be on water. It is an administrative location where goods legally enter the country, identified by a CBP Schedule D code. Chicago is one, and no ocean vessel calls there.
- Port of discharge decides your clock. Free time, the demurrage rate and the hour the count begins all belong to the port where the box actually came off the ship — not to the port of entry and not to the place of delivery on the same document.
- FIRMS codes identify the facility, not the port. Four alpha-numeric characters assigned by CBP to a bonded warehouse, a container station, a terminal or a foreign trade zone. Two facilities inside one port have two different FIRMS codes.
Four fields that say port, and the code each one takes
Port of entry, port of unlading, port of discharge and place of delivery are four separate fields on the paperwork for one container, and only one of them decides when your free time starts. A port of entry is an administrative location designated by Customs and Border Protection where goods legally enter the country, and it does not have to be on water. A port of discharge is the physical place the box came off the ship.
Which field decides who bills you, and from where
Four fields, three different owners, three different code systems. The column that matters most is the last one: which field the money is counted from.
How this page is built · what we are paid
- This page maps the fields to the code systems that identify them. It does not reprint the code lists themselves — those are published by Customs and Border Protection and they are the source to use.
- The lists have been located and not read, so no individual code or its meaning is asserted anywhere here. That is gap I.
- Which field the clock belongs to is read from the tariffs themselves, not inferred.
- No company or agency has paid to appear here, and no link on this site is a referral link.
| Field | What it names | Whose term it is | Identifier | Does the demurrage clock run from it? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Port of entry | the administrative location where goods legally enter; need not be on water | Customs and Border Protection | Schedule D code | no |
| Port of unlading | where the goods physically came off the conveyance — a field on the entry summary | Customs and Border Protection | Schedule D code | no |
| Port of discharge | where the container came off the ship | the ocean carrier, on the bill of lading | UN/LOCODE | yes — free time, the rate and the start hour all belong to this field |
| Place of delivery | where carriage ends under the contract; can be a thousand miles inland | the ocean carrier, on the bill of lading | not applicableno code — a named place | no |
| FIRMS code | a specific facility: bonded warehouse, container station, terminal or foreign trade zone | Customs and Border Protection | four alpha-numeric characters | no — but it names where the box actually is |
What picking the wrong field costs
Reading the wrong field costs money in one specific way: you plan the clock against the place your cargo is going instead of the place it landed.
| The question | If you read the place of delivery | What actually governs |
|---|---|---|
| Whose free time applies | Chicago, the ramp | Long Beach — the port of discharge, and the rail leg has its own separate allowance |
| What the first paid day costs | a ramp rate — Maersk publishes 190/250/280 at ramps | $165–$370 at Long Beach across the tariffs we readnine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026 |
| When the count starts | when the box reaches Chicago | at discharge in California — Maersk begins at the first 3:00 AM after itMaersk USA Imports · read 07/26/2026 |
How the clock itself runs, in detail: how the demurrage clock runs. What each carrier charges once it has run out: what each ocean carrier charges after free time.
If the days were counted in the wrong place
If the days were counted in the wrong place, that is not a dispute about the rate — it is a dispute about the document. A demurrage invoice in US trade answers to 46 CFR Part 541, in force since 05/28/2024 and litigated twice since, and among the things an invoice is expected to identify are the container and the dates charged — which is to say, where and when those days were counted. Read the current text at eCFR.
How to test the invoice you have: the federal rules your invoice has to meet.
Descriptive, not legal advice.
How to read the four fields off your own paperwork
All four fields are on paperwork you already hold. Here is where to find each one.
- Open the bill of lading, not the invoice. Port of discharge and place of delivery are carrier fields and they live there. The invoice quotes them; it does not define them.
- Read the port of discharge as a UN/LOCODE. Five characters, country then place — USLAX, USSAV, USNYC. That is the field the free time and the rate belong to.
- Read the place of delivery as a named place, not a code. If it names an inland city, your box has a rail or road leg after discharge, and that leg runs on its own allowance.
- Get the port of entry and the port of unlading from the entry summary. Those are your broker’s fields, identified by CBP Schedule D codes, and they answer where the goods legally entered rather than where they were lifted off a ship.
- Ask for the FIRMS code of the facility. Four alpha-numeric characters naming the exact terminal, container station or bonded warehouse the box is standing in — the field that tells a driver where to go.
- Then plan the clock against the port of discharge alone. How many free days that carrier gives there: how many free days each port allows. If the box has already stopped moving: what to do when the box will not move.
When these do not line up
The four fields stop lining up in four situations, and each one changes who you ask about what.
- An inland port of entry. Goods can legally enter at a location with no berth at all, and nothing about that location runs a demurrage clock.
- A vessel that skips the planned port. The port of discharge on your paperwork is not the one the box reached, and the tariff that applies is the one where it actually landed — when the ship skips your port.
- A box that moves between facilities. An examination station and a bonded warehouse have different FIRMS codes, and the days spent moving between them still count.
- Equipment that follows a different route from the cargo. The chassis under the box has its own bill and its own clock — what the chassis adds to the bill.
The pages answering this question are answering a different comparison
The pages answering this question are mostly answering a different comparison — port of loading against port of discharge, which is a question about the origin end of the voyage.
| What we measured | Value |
|---|---|
| Unique addresses across the queries | 26, of which 13 carry a date |
| What five of the eight results on the head query answer | loading against discharge — a different pair of fields entirely |
| How many positions the federal source itself holds | five |
| The one query in this whole project with neither an AI answer nor a quick answer | the CBP port-code list query — the engine offers no summary of it at all |
| Foreign customs sources appearing in the results and the autocomplete | Indian customs terminology, on a US query |
| A carrier publishing terminals with their FIRMS codes | one, and it ranks for the FIRMS query — a ready source for the code gap |
our own capture of the port-field queries, Google US, 07/26/2026
The quick answer on the head query is correct as far as it goes: it distinguishes two of the four fields. The other two are where the money is.
How each status on this site is defined, and the full list of what has not been read: how every figure here is sourced.
- 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 the four port fields
What is the difference between port of unlading and port of discharge?
Port of unlading is CBP's field on the entry summary; port of discharge is the carrier's term on the bill of lading. They describe the same event from two sides and take different identifiers — a Schedule D code for one, a UN/LOCODE for the other.
What is the difference between place of delivery and port of discharge?
Place of delivery is where the carrier's obligation ends and it can be hundreds of miles inland. Port of discharge is always where the ship is. A bill of lading routinely names two different cities in those two fields.
What does port of discharge mean?
The port where your container came off the vessel. It is the field that decides your money: free time, the demurrage rate and the hour the count begins all belong to it, not to the port of entry on the same shipment.
What is the port of entry in shipping?
A government-designated administrative location with customs processing, identified by a CBP Schedule D code. It does not have to be on water — Chicago is a port of entry and no ocean vessel calls there.
What is a FIRMS code?
A four-character alpha-numeric identifier assigned by CBP to a specific facility handling imported goods — a bonded warehouse, a container station, a terminal or a foreign trade zone. Two facilities inside one port carry two different codes.
Where do I find the CBP port codes list?
On cbp.gov, in the Schedule D appendix, mirrored by census.gov. We do not reprint the list; the useful part is knowing which of the four port fields the code belongs in, which is what the table above does.
Which field decides my free time?
The port of discharge, and inside it the terminal identified by its FIRMS code. The port of entry decides where the paperwork goes and has no bearing on the days. This is the single most expensive confusion in the set.
Why do searches for US port codes return Indian customs lists?
Because the terms are shared across customs administrations, and the autocomplete for this query is full of Indian variants. This page covers the United States only; another jurisdiction needs its own reference.
The four fields decide where the clock runs; the clock decides what the days cost; the invoice decides whether you owe them. All three pages are linked above.