Port profile · Savannah, Georgia · USSAV · figures read 07/26–07/29/2026
Port of Savannah is not the biggest US container port, and it is the biggest of something else: Garden City Terminal is the largest single-terminal container facility in North America, at 1,345 acres with 9,693 feet of continuous berth. Los Angeles moved roughly twice Savannah’s volume in calendar 2025. Those are three different superlatives, and the middle one is the one Savannah owns.
Whether Savannah or Charleston is the right berth for a given box is not decided by size at all: how savannah and charleston actually differ. The coast as a whole is compared here — the East Coast ports compared.
Volumes: Georgia Ports Authority and Port of Los Angeles · read 07/26/2026.
Port of Savannah publishes the hour, and that is rarer than it sounds. Rule 34-025 begins the free-time count at the first 12:01 AM after discharge rather than at discharge itself, so a box landed at one in the afternoon collects nearly eleven hours that nobody bills and nobody advertises. The published answer to “how much free time” for this port ranges from four to seven days depending on who is answering — and the port’s own rule sits at position one of the same results.
Port of Savannah also runs two clocks, not one. Rule 34-025 covers the terminal; Rule 34-035 covers Mason Mega Rail. A box leaving by rail is not on the terminal’s clock, and the rail rule is a separate document we have located and not yet read.
How this profile is built · what we are paid
Container discharged at 1:00 PM at Garden City · Rule 34-025 starts the count at the next 12:01 AM
| Rule | What it covers | What it says | Our reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| 34-025 | Free time at the terminal, 11-ARP | the count starts at the first 12:01 AM after discharge | read in fullread 07/26/2026 |
| 34-035 | Free time at Mason Mega Rail, 10-A | found, not readposition 5 on the port’s own free-time query — gap B | located, not openedgaports.com · seen 07/26/2026 |
| 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 Savannah costs a median $265 for the first paid day of carrier demurrage across the nine tariffs we read, in a band from $165 to $300 over eight lines. Yang Ming names Savannah separately at $260, rising to $290 and then $385, with five working days free — the kind of line that makes a port checkable rather than cheap.
What a 40-foot import container picks up at Savannah, and how much of it we can price
One line of the five is read in full here, one is a market consensus with no document behind it and three are not published in comparable form anywhere. 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. Terminal handling: quoted range from search results, source unverified — it appears here as a consensus and never in a ranking column.
| Charge at Savannah | 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 | $265 median, $165–$300nine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026 |
| Terminal storage | Georgia Ports Authority | Cargo interest, usually via the carrier | GPA Rule 34-255 | found, not readthe rule ranks at position 2 on the port’s own query — gap A |
| Terminal handling | Ocean carrier | Whoever the Incoterm assigns | the carrier’s tariff, by port | not publishedthe market quotes $290–$370 per TEU with no document behind it |
| Drayage | Motor carrier | Cargo interest | a quote, not a published tariff | not publishedgap F |
| Chassis per diem | Chassis pool or carrier | Motor carrier, passed through to you | the pool tariff | not checked yetgap G |
| Local fees | Georgia Ports Authority or the terminal | Motor carrier or cargo interest, by fee | the port fee schedule | not checked yetgap J |
MSC US tariff, February 2026 · read 07/28/2026.
Port of Savannah runs two container terminals, and one of them is the reason the port’s figures read like a port and behave like a terminal: Garden City handles the container business on a single contiguous site.
| Terminal | Size and berth | On-terminal rail | Address | Gate hours and appointments | FIRMS code |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Garden City Terminal | 1,345 acres · 9,693 ft berthGeorgia Ports Authority · read 07/26/2026 | Yes — Mason Mega Rail, on its own free-time rule 34-035 | not checked yetgap H | not checked yetgap H — terminal queries return a local pack, so this is the field that matters most and it is the one we lack | not checked yetgap I |
| Ocean Terminal | not checked yet | not checked yet | not checked yetgap H | not checked yetgap H | not checked yetgap I |
Port of Savannah has three published dwell numbers and they disagree by a factor of 2.3, because they measure three different things. Any single figure quoted without saying which one it is cannot be used, and most quoted figures do not say.
| Figure | What it measures | Status of the number |
|---|---|---|
| about 3.9 days | import container dwell on the terminal | consensus across several reports, no primary document readsearch results · read 07/26/2026 |
| about 20 hours | rail dwell — a box leaving on a train | consensus, no primary document readsearch results · read 07/26/2026 |
| about 9.1 days | yard dwell across the terminal | consensus, no primary document readsearch results · read 07/26/2026 |
None of the three is a figure the port publishes with a definition attached — that is gap E, and it is why no dwell number from this page enters a ranking column. Which dwell each port means, and who publishes a definition: how long a box sits, and which dwell is meant.
Port of Savannah local charges are the emptiest part of this profile: the fee schedule is not read, so every row below says so. For contrast, here are the two ports where we have read the schedule, so you can see the class of charge that is missing rather than assume there is none.
| Fee | Port | Amount | Who pays |
|---|---|---|---|
| Savannah fee schedule, whatever it contains | Savannah | not checked yetgap J | not checked yet |
| Sustained import dwell fee | Houston | $45 per unit per day from day 8Port Houston · read 07/26/2026 | Cargo interest |
| Clean Truck Fund rate | Los Angeles | $10 per TEU, $20 for a box over 20 feetPort of Los Angeles · read 07/26/2026 | Motor carrier, passed through |
Port of Savannah scores well on this ledger and the score is deliberately unflattering to us rather than to the port: it counts what the port publishes, and it marks what we have not opened even when we know exactly where it is.
| What an importer needs | Published? | Read by us? |
|---|---|---|
| Free time in days | Yes — Rule 34-025 | readread 07/26/2026 |
| The hour the count starts | Yes — first 12:01 AM after discharge | readread 07/26/2026 |
| A separate rule for rail | Yes — Rule 34-035 | found, not read |
| Storage tariff | Yes — Rule 34-255 | found, not read |
| Container dwell with a definition | not checked yetgap E | not checked yet |
| Gate hours and appointment system | not checked yetgap H | not checked yet |
| Chassis pool and per diem | not checked yetgap G | not checked yet |
| Local fee schedule | not checked yetgap J | not checked yet |
| Confirmed 2 of 8 · found but not read 2 · not checked yet 4. No rank is printed against this score, and none will be until all thirty ports have been through the same eight questions. | ||
The reason Savannah is worth reading first is in the ledger itself: this tariff is published rule by rule, and the rules rank at positions one and two of the port’s own queries. Every port we cover, with the same eight questions asked of each: every US container port we cover.
Port of Savannah sits on two ways out — the gate and the rail head inside the fence — and the choice changes which clock you are on, because Mason Mega Rail runs under its own free-time rule.
| Destination | How the box moves | Rate |
|---|---|---|
| Atlanta | road, or rail to an inland ramp | not publishedgap F — no comparable drayage set exists |
| Memphis | rail from Mason Mega Rail, then road | not publishedgap F |
| Chicago | rail from Mason Mega Rail, then road | not publishedgap F |
Which port a given inland market should actually import through is a different question from which port is cheapest to enter: which port your atlanta cargo should enter through, which port your memphis cargo should enter through, which port your chicago cargo should enter through. What the road leg costs from each port, and why the column is empty: what the road leg costs from each port.
Your box is discharged somewhere else and comes back by road or by feeder, and the tariff that applies is the one at the port where it actually landed — not this one.
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 stops the clock for nobody: free time keeps running while the container sits, and storage begins on schedule.
The cargo interest pays the storage; the hold itself is cleared through your broker.
The container moves to an examination site and back, and the days spent there are days on the clock.
Cargo interest pays the move and the time.
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 Savannah 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.
Descriptive, not legal advice. The tariff and the invoice in your own file govern your case.
Port of Savannah has eleven organisations in the Federal Maritime Commission’s register of ocean transportation intermediaries giving an address in Savannah, Pooler or Garden City. The register carries the licence number, the surety and the bond amount for each.
FMC OTI register download · read 07/28/2026.
How each of those statuses is defined, what it is allowed to be used for, and the corrections log: how every figure here is sourced.
Set by your carrier's tariff: Yang Ming publishes five working days for Savannah. What the port itself publishes is the hour — Rule 34-025 starts the count at the first 12:01 AM after discharge, and Rule 34-035 sets a separate clock for Mason Mega Rail.
The Georgia Ports Authority, a state authority. That matters practically rather than politically: because it is a public body its tariff is published rule by rule and you can cite the rule number you are being billed under.
About 5.7 million TEU in calendar 2025, its second-largest year on record. Monthly volume then fell year on year in April 2026, so both the record and the decline are current facts and this page carries them with their dates.
Savannah, by container volume. Size is not what decides between them for a given shipment — whether the box can be lifted onto a train inside the terminal fence matters more, and Charleston runs three container terminals rather than one.
Garden City Terminal, the largest single-terminal container facility in North America at 1,345 acres with 9,693 feet of continuous berth. That is why Savannah's figures read like one port and behave like one terminal.
A median of $265 for the first paid day across the nine carrier tariffs we read, with a range of $165 to $300 over eight lines. Yang Ming names Savannah separately at $260 rising to $290 and $385; most other carriers fold it into their unnamed-ports group.
Three published numbers exist for the same port: about 3.9 days of import dwell, roughly 20 hours of rail dwell and about 9.1 days of yard dwell. They measure different things, and any single figure quoted without saying which is not usable.
Because position zero on that query is occupied by the Savannah songwriter, with a knowledge panel to match. The drayage companies are further down the same results and they are real; the answer above them is not about freight.