Port profile · Los Angeles, California · USLAX · figures read 07/26–07/29/2026
Port of Los Angeles is the biggest US container port by volume, and it is the one port where the published answer to that question is both correct and dated: 10,239,318 TEU in calendar 2025, counted to the individual container rather than rounded to a million. June 2026 was its best June on record at 1,002,734 TEU, of which 530,558 were loaded imports.
Being biggest says nothing about what a box costs here, and the two orders are unrelated. Against Oakland, where the deciding variable is a different one entirely: how oakland and los angeles actually differ. The whole coast: the West Coast ports compared.
Port of Los Angeles container statistics · read 07/26/2026.
Port of Los Angeles does not set the free-time clock here — the carrier does, and the one we have read starts it at 3:00 AM. Maersk begins the count at the first 3:00 AM after discharge at both Los Angeles and Long Beach, which is a different hour from the 12:01 AM that Savannah’s port authority publishes and a different party setting it.
What the port itself publishes about free time and storage is Tariff No. 4. It ranks at position three on the only cost query in this port’s set, it is quoted by nobody, and we have not opened it either — that is gap A and gap B for this port, and it is named rather than skipped.
How this profile is built · what we are paid
Container discharged at Los Angeles · Maersk starts the count at the first 3:00 AM after discharge
| Whose tariff | Scope | The clock starts | Source · read |
|---|---|---|---|
| Georgia Ports Authority | Savannah, Rule 34-025 | first 12:01 AM after discharge | GPA Rule 34-025 · read 07/26/2026 |
| Maersk | Los Angeles and Long Beach imports | first 3:00 AM after discharge | Maersk, USA Imports · read 07/26/2026 |
| Seaboard Marine | US imports | first 08:00 of the first working day after discharge | Seaboard Marine, 11/05/2024 · read 07/26/2026 |
Port of Los Angeles costs a median $275 for the first paid day of carrier demurrage across the ten tariffs we read, in a band from $165 to $370 over fourteen lines — a spread of 2.2. The terminal and the service decide the ends of it: HMM charges $210 at TTI, SSA Terminal A, APM and WBT against $270 elsewhere here, and ZIM charges $245 on its Fast service against $370 on Expedited at the same berths.
One number circulating for this port is wrong in scope rather than in arithmetic. A published range of $65 to $315 for Los Angeles demurrage folds in MSC’s Port Everglades rate, which is a Florida figure on a California query. Across the nine tariffs the Los Angeles range is $210 to $300.
What a 40-foot import container picks up at Los Angeles, and how much of it we can price
What terminal handling costs by port, where anyone publishes it: what terminal handling costs by port. The same stack ranked across every port: the cost stack ranked port by port.
Demurrage: nine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026. Drayage: vendor range, no sample size — gap F.
| Charge at Los Angeles | Billed by | Owed by | The document that sets it | Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Carrier demurrage | Ocean carrier | Consignee or the counterparty named on the invoice, not both | the carrier’s US import tariff | $270 median, $210–$300nine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026 |
| Terminal storage | Marine terminal operator | Cargo interest, usually via the carrier | Port of Los Angeles Tariff No. 4 | found, not readposition 3 on the port’s only cost query — gap A |
| Terminal handling | Ocean carrier | Whoever the Incoterm assigns | the carrier’s tariff, by port | not checked yet |
| Drayage | Motor carrier | Cargo interest | a quote, not a published tariff | not publishedvendors quote $400–$900 with no sample size — gap F |
| Chassis per diem | Chassis pool or carrier | Motor carrier, passed through to you | the pool tariff | not checked yetgap G |
| Clean Truck Fund rate | Port of Los Angeles | Motor carrier, passed through to you | the Clean Truck Program schedule | $10 per TEU · $20 over 20 ftPort of Los Angeles · read 07/26/2026 |
MSC US tariff, February 2026 · read 07/28/2026.
Port of Los Angeles terminals are not interchangeable on price, and one carrier prices that difference openly: HMM charges $210 for the first paid day at TTI, SSA Terminal A, APM and WBT against $270 at every other berth in the two ports. That is a 22% swing decided by which terminal your service calls at, before any negotiation.
| Terminal group in the tariff | HMM first paid day | What it means | Gate hours and appointments |
|---|---|---|---|
| TTI · SSA Terminal A · APM · WBT | $210 | the cheaper group, named individually in the tariff | not checked yetgap H |
| Every other berth at Los Angeles and Long Beach | $270 | the residual group — a rate written for nobody in particular | not checked yetgap H |
HMM tariff HDMU-040, rule 101-1 · read 07/29/2026
Port of Los Angeles has five dwell figures in circulation for one season, and they span 2.2 times. They are not contradictory so much as different quantities wearing the same word, and none of them is a figure the port publishes with a definition attached.
| Figure | What it measures | Status of the number |
|---|---|---|
| 5.06 days | rail dwell, April 2026, against 4.41 in March | trade association figure with a periodPacific Merchant Shipping Association, reported 05/20/2026 |
| 3.1 days | street dwell as quoted in the results | consensus, no primary document readsearch results · read 07/26/2026 |
| 3.64 days average | terminal dwell, with a 95th percentile of 6.04 days | consensus, no primary document readsearch results · read 07/26/2026 |
| 5.7 days | import dwell | consensus, no primary document readsearch results · read 07/26/2026 |
| 6.75 days | rail dwell on another reading of the same season | consensus, no primary document readsearch results · read 07/26/2026 |
The port runs a live Cargo Operations Dashboard, which ranks first on the dwell query and would settle most of this. We have not opened it — gap E — so no dwell figure from this page enters a ranking column. Which ports are backed up right now, and on which measure: which ports are backed up right now.
Port of Los Angeles publishes one local fee we have read in full, and reading it corrected our own earlier figure: the Clean Truck Fund rate is $10 per TEU and $20 for a container longer than twenty feet, so a forty-foot box was understated by half in our first pass. That correction is entry five in the log on the method page.
| Fee | Port | Amount | Who pays |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clean Truck Fund rate | Los Angeles | $10 per TEU · $20 over 20 ftPort of Los Angeles · read 07/26/2026 | Motor carrier, passed through |
| The rest of the port fee schedule | Los Angeles | not checked yetgap J | not checked yet |
| Sustained import dwell fee | Houston, for contrast | $45 per unit per day from day 8Port Houston · read 07/26/2026 | Cargo interest |
Port of Los Angeles publishes more than almost any port on the volume side and one document on the cost side, and the asymmetry is not secrecy: people ask about volume and pay for something else. Seven of the forty unique addresses across this port’s queries belong to the port itself, and six of the seven are volume and operations.
| What an importer needs | Published? | Read by us? |
|---|---|---|
| Container volume, to the unit and dated | Yes — monthly statistics | readread 07/26/2026 |
| A live operations feed | Yes — Cargo Operations Dashboard | found, not read |
| The port’s own tariff | Yes — Tariff No. 4 | found, not read |
| A local fee schedule | Yes — Clean Truck Program | readread 07/26/2026 |
| Free time in days | not applicableset by the carrier here, not the port | carrier tariffs read insteadnine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026 |
| The hour the count starts | not applicable | Maersk 3:00 AMread 07/26/2026 |
| Dwell with a definition | found, not readthe dashboard — gap E | not checked yet |
| Gate hours and appointment systems | not checked yetgap H | not checked yet |
| Confirmed 3 of 8 · found but not read 3 · not applicable 2, and those two are not a failing of the port: free time here is written by the carrier. No rank is printed against this score until all thirty ports have been through the same eight questions. | ||
Every port we cover, with the same eight questions asked of each: every US container port we cover.
Port of Los Angeles moves boxes inland by road to the basin and by rail to the Midwest, and the road leg is the line this site cannot price at any port. What circulates for Los Angeles is a vendor range with no sample behind it, and it stays out of every index on this site for that reason.
| Destination | How the box moves | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| The Los Angeles basin | road, same day | not publishedvendors quote $400–$900 per container with no sample size — gap F |
| Chicago | rail from the on-dock and near-dock ramps, then road | not publishedgap F |
| Inland Empire warehousing | road | not publishedgap F |
Which port a given inland market should import through is a different question from which port is cheapest to enter: which port your chicago cargo should enter through.
Your box is discharged at another berth or another port and the tariff that applies is the one where it actually landed — which, in San Pedro Bay, can mean a Long Beach terminal and a dearer line.
Who pays depends on the cause: the carrier for its own schedule change, the shipper for a late gate-in.
A customs or agency hold does not stop the clock. Free time keeps running while the container sits, and storage begins on schedule.
The cargo interest pays the storage; the hold is cleared through your broker.
The same carrier can charge $210 or $270 for the same first paid day here depending on the berth. Ask which terminal before comparing ports.
Cargo interest, and the difference is not negotiable after the fact.
Charges do not stop accruing because nobody collects the box. They accrue against whoever the bill of lading names.
The named consignee, and the liability survives the abandonment.
Both of those situations have their own page: when the ship skips your port and what to do when the box will not move.
Port of Los Angeles demurrage arrives on a carrier’s invoice, not the port’s, and that invoice answers to a federal rule: 46 CFR Part 541, in force since 05/28/2024. The rule has been before the D.C. Circuit twice since, and the decision of 09/29/2025 changed who may be billed — so the text to read is the current one at eCFR, not a summary of the 2024 announcement.
What the invoice has to contain, and how the dispute runs at the carrier: the federal rules your invoice has to meet.
Descriptive, not legal advice. The tariff and the invoice in your own file govern your case.
Port of Los Angeles and Long Beach are addressed by 95 organisations in the Federal Maritime Commission’s register of ocean transportation intermediaries — a basket of five place names: the two port cities together with San Pedro, Wilmington and Terminal Island. The register carries the licence number, the surety and the bond amount for each.
FMC OTI register download · read 07/28/2026.
How each status is defined, what it may be used for, and the corrections log — including the Clean Truck Fund entry this page produced: how every figure here is sourced.
10,239,318 TEU in calendar 2025 and 5,122,603 in the first half of 2026, up 3%. June 2026 was its best June on record at 1,002,734 TEU. Every one of those figures carries its period, which is what makes them usable against each other.
By container volume, yes. By foreign waterborne tonnage the largest US port is Houston. And the phrase largest complex usually means San Pedro Bay, which is Los Angeles and Long Beach together and therefore not one port at all.
Five published numbers exist for one season: 3.1 days of local import dwell, 3.64 average with a 6.04 ninety-fifth percentile, 5.7 days of import dwell and 6.75 of rail dwell. The port runs a live cargo dashboard and the answer above the results still gives a range.
Ten dollars per TEU and twenty dollars for any container longer than twenty feet, under the port's Clean Truck Program. It is levied on non-exempt trucks, which means the motor carrier pays it and passes it to the cargo.
A median of $270 for the first paid day across the nine carrier tariffs we read, ranging from $210 at four named terminals to $300. The figure shown above these results starts at $65, which is MSC's rate at Port Everglades in Florida.
The published range is $400 to $900 per container, and it is a vendor figure with no sample size behind it. We quote it as that rather than averaging it into an index, because a range without a denominator cannot be compared with a tariff.
Under your carrier's tariff. Maersk starts the count at 3:00 AM at Los Angeles and Long Beach. We have not found a published start-hour rule from the port itself, which is a gap in our reading rather than a statement about the port.
No. Two ports in one bay, two sets of tariff lines and two authorities. Both of the dearest demurrage lines in our whole set are named Long Beach terminals, and neither of them is in Los Angeles.