Inland gateway · Memphis · ramp rates read 07/28–07/29/2026

Memphis has a port and it is on a river, and the gap between its two ocean gateways is $12 a day

⚑ The short answer

Memphis is fed by two ports in our map and both of them carry a median, which no other two-gateway market here does. Savannah sits at $265 for the first paid day across eight tariff lines and Long Beach at $280 across fourteen, so the gateway decision this page is named after is worth $30 a day on the one cost line we have read in full.
Memphis-bound containers do not arrive at the port in Memphis. There is one — the International Port of Memphis, on the Mississippi River — and an ocean container from Asia does not land there. The box is discharged at Savannah or Long Beach, moved inland by rail and grounded at a ramp this page cannot name, because the capture names none.
Intermodal ramps charge about $100 a day less than either of these gateways and forgive less time. The ramp rate runs $160 to $190 for the first paid day across the four tariffs that publish it, against $265 and $295 at the ports, and it is identical whichever gateway you use — so where the box sits after the decision is worth more per day than the decision.
US container ports are compared for this market in one published study we have not read, which the results attribute to Georgia Tech and which carries a figure of $1,000 per container across Atlanta, Memphis and Nashville. That figure is per container and ours is per day, and the two are not comparable — the page reports the claim and adopts none of it.

The only market here whose two gateways both carry a medianAnd they are $12 a day apartThe ramp is about $100 a day below either of them

The two legs of a Memphis import, and the twelve dollars between the gateways

A Memphis import runs on rail from one of two coasts, and for once both gateways can be priced: the medians are $12 a day apart. That is the whole of the difference the port choice makes on the one line we read in full — and the ramp your box is grounded at charges about $100 a day less than either.

How this page is built · what we are paid

No cost figure on this page is a Memphis figure. The tariffs price port groups and ramp classes, and not one of those lines names this market.
This is the only two-gateway market in the catalogue where both sides carry a median, which is the only reason a gap between them can be stated at all.
Ramp rates are national and identical whichever gateway is used.
The rail leg — the longest part of this route — is not published anywhere, and that is a property of how rail is sold rather than a document we failed to read.
No carrier, port or railroad has paid to appear here, and no link on this site is a referral link.

The two gateways this market draws from, and the leg that follows.
Gateway or leg	Coast	First paid day	Free time	The clock starts
Savannah	East	$265 median · $165–$300 across eight linesnine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026	four days at most carriers — and five working days with one, which is the only carve-out touching either gateway	the first 12:01 AM after discharge — the port publishes the hourGPA Rule 34-025 · read 07/26/2026
Long Beach	West	$280 median · $165–$370 across fourteen linesnine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026	four days at most carriers	the first 3:00 AM after discharge, with one carrier
The ramp in this district	not applicable	$160–$190 · median $163four of the nine tariffs · read 07/28–07/29/2026	fewer days	from grounding, not from discharge
Rail line-haul between them	not applicable	not publisheda contract rate rather than a tariff — no document exists to read	not applicable	not applicable

What an empty-looking cell means: not applicable — the measure does not apply to this row not published — the source publishes no figure here

Both gateways are profiled in full. The cheaper of the two is also the only port on this site whose own authority rule has been read end to end: what it costs to land a box at savannah and what it costs to land a box at long beach.

A CBP port of entry is a code, not a berth, and Memphis's own port is on a river

Memphis has a port and it is on a river. The International Port of Memphis sits on the Mississippi and is a real inland port — and it is not where an ocean container from Asia arrives. That box is discharged at a coast and grounded at a rail ramp in this district.

The city also holds a Customs and Border Protection port of entry, which is an administrative location with a code rather than a berth. We publish the distinction and none of the codes: the code lists are unread, and the results ask for a sea port code for this city directly — which makes the temptation stronger and the error more expensive.

The four fields that all say “port”, and which one the money is counted from: why the port of entry is not the berth.

What these results name for Memphis, and why none of it is where your box lands

The rail facility that matters most on this routing is at the origin rather than here: the Savannah gateway runs its own on-terminal rail, and that rail has a separate free-time rule with its own number.

What the results name for this route.
Facility	Where	Its own free-time rule	Filing code
Mason Mega Rail	inside the Savannah terminal, at the origin of this routing	found, not readRule 34-035 — located in the port’s own results and unopened	not publishedgap I
not checked yetthe destination ramp in this district is not named in anything we captured	the Memphis district	not checked yet	not publishedgap I

What an empty-looking cell means: found, not read — the document exists and is identified, but we have not opened it not published — the source publishes no figure here not checked yet — we have not read the document yet

A page query asks for exactly the number that does not exist. One of the queries this page answers asks for the intermodal rail cost from the eastern gateway to this city, and the related searches ask for a calculator, a cost per ton-mile and railroad shipping rates. That is the sharpest case on this site of demand meeting a rate that is not published in principle rather than one we failed to read: rail line-haul moves on contract rates.

Twelve dollars for the gateway and about a hundred for where it sits after

The ramp charges less per day than either gateway and forgives fewer days, and both halves come from the same document for each carrier.

Ramp-class rates against the port-group medians they sit beside. Four of the nine tariffs publish ramp rates separately.
Carrier	Ramp first paid day	Ramp tiers	Its own port rate
CMA CGM	$160	160 / 210 / 260	$275 in California
Hapag-Lloyd	$160	160 / 220 / 250	$270 California base
ZIM	$165	165 / 200 / 230	$250 standard ports
Maersk	$190	190 / 250 / 280	$300 standard ports
The ramp median is $163, below every port-group median we read. These are national ramp-class rates: not one of them names this market, and none of them changes with the gateway you choose.

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

Whether the coast itself decides anything: how east coast and west coast actually differ. What happens when the vessel skips the port your box was routed to: when the ship skips your port. And the rule any invoice for these days answers to: the federal rules your invoice has to meet.

The cheaper gateway also gives more free time, and its rail rule is one we have not opened

The ramp clock is shorter than the port clock and starts from a different event — and on this routing there is a third clock, because the origin terminal’s rail runs under its own rule.

The same two carriers, port against ramp, from the same documents.
Carrier	At the port	At the ramp	Read
Hapag-Lloyd	the day of discharge plus four working days	the grounding day plus two working days	read 07/28/2026
CMA CGM	four working days	three days	read 07/28/2026

The most practically useful line on this page. At the ramp the count starts from grounding, not from discharge off the vessel. A different event, in a different place, on a different day — and a reader holding the vessel arrival date cannot derive the ramp start from it. Ask for the grounding date.

One rail dwell figure exists for the origin, and it is not the transit. About 20 hours of rail dwell circulates for the eastern gateway. It measures how long a box waited for a train at the port — not the journey, not the ramp clock, and not the time to this city.

How the clock works on the ocean side: how the demurrage clock runs.

FMC on the water, FMCSA on the road, and the longest leg of this route in neither

The ocean leg is licensed by the Federal Maritime Commission. Its register of ocean transportation intermediaries carries the licence number, the surety and the bond for each organisation, and it is public.
The road leg is regulated by a different federal agency altogether, and nothing in the maritime register describes it.
No single document covers your whole route. A genuine, current licence can cover a leg the company does not actually run — that is a difference in regulated subject, not a fraud.
So the question to ask is not whether a licence exists. It is which leg is covered by whose licence, and who is doing the other one.

What a comparable Memphis gateway quote has to list

Which port of discharge, by name — the ocean rate and the clock belong to it.
Which ramp, by name, if the box moves inland under the carrier’s bill. A district is not a ramp.
Free time at the ramp, and the event it counts from. This is the line most often missing, and without it two quotes showing the same total are not comparable.
The daily rate after that free time, in tiers, because every tariff steps up.
Who does the road leg from the ramp, and under whose authority.
What is not included — chassis, storage at the ramp, and anything billed by a party other than the one quoting you.

The largest number on this route is the one nobody publishes

The two largest numbers on this route are not published anywhere — for two different reasons. Drayage from the ramp to your door is our gap: no comparable rate set exists from a single dated source with a stated sample size, and the vendor ranges that circulate have no sample behind them. That is gap F. Rail line-haul is different in kind: it moves on contract rates rather than on a published tariff, so there is no document we failed to read. Conflating the two would accuse a source of secrecy where there is none — and the practical consequence is the same either way: the two biggest lines of an inland move are quoted to you rather than published.

One quantified comparison of gateway routings does exist in these results — a figure of $1,000 per container attached to an East-against-West comparison covering this city among others. What it covers, over what period and against what baseline does not survive in our capture, so it is reported here and never set beside our own per-day figures.

What an inland port can and cannot do for Memphis cargo

An inland port is a real thing, and in this city it is a real place on a river. What it can and cannot do for an ocean import:

It can clear customs, store, transload and distribute.
It cannot receive an ocean vessel. Your container from Asia does not arrive there.
It cannot change the carrier’s tariff or the clock at the coast.
And the river port is not the rail ramp. The box on this routing is grounded at an intermodal facility, and that is the address to ask for.

What the market publishes when asked which port serves Memphis

This market’s results carry a parcel hub, a town with the same name as the gateway, and a rail rate nobody publishes. These are our own counts.

What the results for the Memphis gateway queries actually contain, captured 07/26/2026.
What we measured	Value
What the demand asks for and nobody publishes	the intermodal rail cost from the gateway to this city — a page query, plus refinements asking for a calculator and a cost per ton-mile
A real port in this city	on the Mississippi River — and not where an ocean container arrives. No ranking claim about it is adopted here.
A code demand	the related set asks for a sea port code for a city whose port is on a river — direct demand for a list we have not read
A parcel carrier’s hub in this city	three of the eighteen questions, one of which asks why packages get stuck — a different subject from a container held at a terminal
The gateway’s name, elsewhere	a town in Tennessee shares it, and the refinements about driving and flights show which one those searchers mean

our own capture of the Memphis gateway queries, Google US, 07/26/2026

Licensed intermediaries for the Memphis market, and what the register does not say

The Memphis metro has not been counted in the Federal Maritime Commission’s register of ocean transportation intermediaries. Two port areas have been counted — 95 organisations at Los Angeles and Long Beach, eleven at Savannah.

Three things the register does not tell you, and the third matters most on a rail market. It carries an organisation’s address rather than the routes it works. Absence from it is not a finding about a company. And it does not cover the inland leg at all — which on this routing is the longest part of the journey and the part nobody publishes a rate for.

Questions about importing to Memphis through Savannah or Long Beach

Best port to import to Memphis?

Two in our map and $30 a day between them on the line we read in full: Savannah at a median of $265 for the first paid day across eight tariff lines, Long Beach at $280 across fourteen. Savannah is also the one a carrier gives an extra free day, which is the only carve-out touching either gateway.

Does Memphis have a shipping port?

Yes, on the Mississippi River, and it is not where a container from Asia arrives. An ocean box for this market is discharged at a seaport and moved inland by rail. The river port and the ocean routing are two different things that share a city.

What is the closest port to Tennessee?

No distance between a port and an inland market is published anywhere on this site. The two gateways our map routes here are Savannah and Long Beach, and which is nearer is not the same question as which is cheaper.

Intermodal rail cost from Savannah to Memphis?

No published rate exists. Rail line-haul moves on contract rates rather than a tariff, so this is not something we failed to read — there is no document to open. What is published is the port line at each end and the ramp line after it.

How much does shipping by rail cost?

Not answerable from any tariff. The related searches ask for a calculator and for a cost per ton-mile, and neither exists as a published schedule the way an ocean carrier's demurrage tariff does.

What is the Memphis sea port code?

Not published here, and the phrase itself is worth pausing on: the port in Memphis is a river port. Port-of-entry and FIRMS code lists come from CBP and we have not read them, and a code is needed for a filing, which is why giving one from memory would be worse than giving none.

Do I get the same free time at a Memphis ramp as at the port?

No, less. Hapag-Lloyd gives ramps the grounding day plus two working days against four at the port, and CMA CGM gives rail three days against four. The count also starts from grounding rather than from discharge off the vessel.

How long does a box wait for rail at Savannah?

About 20 hours of rail dwell is the consensus figure for that port, and it measures how long a box waited for a train there — not the transit, not the ramp clock and not the time to Memphis. Dwell means five different things across this site and this is one of them.

Why do these results talk about a parcel carrier?

Because this city is that carrier's hub, and three of the questions above these results are about it. A parcel stuck in that network and a container stuck at a port share the word and nothing else.