Directory · eleven US container ports · figures read 07/26–07/29/2026
US container ports listed by what each one publishes, not by how much moves through it
- US container ports in this directory number eleven, and a port enters it when at least one primary document about that port has been read end to end — a carrier tariff line, a port authority rule, a published volume release. Appearing on somebody else's tonnage table is not a qualification, and the count will grow as documents are read, not as names are added.
- US container ports are almost always listed by tonnage or by TEU, and every competing list in this result set is sorted that way. Volume answers how much moves through a port. It does not answer what the port costs, when its free-time clock starts, or whether the port publishes either — which is what the table below indexes instead.
- US container port cost is set more by the carrier than by the port on the one line read in full. Median first paid day runs from $260 to $360 across five port groups, while inside a single port the range reaches 4.9x. The directory carries each port's median and sends you to the ranking for the tariff lines behind it.
- Container ports here are covered incompletely and every hole is named. Terminal storage tariffs and port authority free-time rules are unread for most of the eleven. No cell is left blank: each is a value, not published, found but not read, not checked yet, or not applicable, and the last four are as informative as the first.
Every US container port we cover, and what has been read about each
US container ports are indexed here by what has actually been read about each one, which is why the columns are mostly about documents rather than about size. Eleven ports, alphabetically.
How this index is built · what we are paid
- This is a catalogue and the order is alphabetical. Sorting it by the median column would reproduce the cost ranking, which lives on its own page and is linked below.
- The volume column cannot be sorted at all: a calendar year, a half-year, a single month and a 2024 tonnage figure sit in neighbouring rows, and a sort control over them would manufacture a ranking the sources do not support.
- The median is taken over all-in rows only. Rows where a carrier bills line demurrage alone and the terminal invoices storage separately are shown on the port page, marked, and excluded from the median.
- Every empty-looking cell names which kind of empty it is: not published, found but not read, or not checked yet. There is no position column, because the annual container series is unread — gap C.
- No port has paid to appear in this index or to be positioned in it, and no link on this site is a referral link.
| Port | Coast | Median first paid day | Tariff lines read | Port authority free-time rule | Latest volume figure |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baltimore | East | not checked yet | not checked yet | not checked yet | not checked yet |
| Charleston | East | not checked yet | not checked yet | not checked yet | not checked yet |
| Houston | Gulf | not checked yet | not checked yet | not checked yet | 220.1M short tons · 2024 · foreign waterborne tonnage |
| Jacksonville | East | not checked yet | not checked yet | not checked yet | not checked yet |
| Long Beach | West | $280$165–$370 | 8 | not checked yet | 4,829,578 TEU · first half of 2026 |
| Los Angeles | West | $270$210–$300 | 8 | found, not readTariff No. 4 | 10,239,318 TEU · calendar 2025 |
| New York / New Jersey | East | $350$80–$625 | 12 | not checked yet | not checked yet |
| Oakland | West | not checked yet | not checked yet | not checked yet | 181,356 TEU · June 2026 |
| Savannah | East | $260$165–$300 | 7 | Rule 34-025 — read | about 5.7M TEU · calendar 2025 |
| Seattle / Tacoma (NWSA) | West | not checked yet | not checked yet | not checked yet | 262,546 TEU · June 2026 |
| Virginia (Norfolk) | East | $260$165–$300 | 6 | not checked yet | not checked yet |
| Three footnotes this table cannot do without. One — Los Angeles and Long Beach are one port group in most of the nine tariffs: ten distinct lines feed two columns of eight, six of them covering both ports, which is why the medians nearly match while the ceilings differ by $30. Two — the port the carrier tariffs call Norfolk is the one profiled here as Virginia; one place, two names, and a reader holding a tariff needs both. Three — knowing that most tariffs price a residual group is not the same as having extracted a number for Charleston, Jacksonville or Baltimore, so those cells stay unread rather than inferred. | |||||
medians from nine US import demurrage tariffs · read 07/28–08/01/2026; volumes from each port authority · read 07/26/2026
Sorted by that median column this becomes the cost ranking, and the cost ranking is where it belongs with its full tariff detail: the cost stack ranked port by port. What arrives on the invoice for those days, and how to test it: the federal rules your invoice has to meet.
Start from your coast, or from the city the box is going to
US container ports divide two ways that matter, and both are cuts of the table above rather than separate pages.
By coast. East is Baltimore, Charleston, Jacksonville, New York and New Jersey, Savannah and Virginia. West is Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland and Seattle with Tacoma. Gulf is Houston. The coast decides the ocean leg and the transit time; it does not decide the first paid day, which runs from $260 to $350 inside the East Coast alone.
By the market the box is going to. This cut is written as a rule rather than drawn as a table, because the road leg that would price it does not exist in comparable form anywhere: the port that is cheapest to enter is not always the one that is cheapest to reach, and no published drayage set lets anyone say by how much.
What a port profile in this directory actually contains
US container port profiles in this directory hold the same seventeen blocks in the same order, so two ports can be read against each other without hunting for the equivalent paragraph. Each one carries:
- The identity plate — the codes, the terminals, the authority, and which of those we have verified.
- The clock — who sets free time at that port, when the count starts, and whether the port itself publishes a rule you can cite.
- The cost stack — the five lines a box picks up, hatched wherever we have not read the document.
- Who bills what — every charge with its biller and the party that owes it, which is knowable even where the amount is not.
- The terminals — and, where a tariff names them, what each berth actually charges.
- A disclosure ledger — eight things an importer needs, and whether that port publishes them. The same eight questions at every port.
Terminals are a finer unit than ports in the documents that set the price, and they have a catalogue of their own: the terminals inside each port. And the register that covers the ocean leg of your route and no other, counted by place and never by company: what a licence covers, and what it does not.
How much of the US container port map this directory actually holds
US container ports covered here: eleven. What that is eleven of is a question this page does not answer, and the refusal is deliberate — the published lists of US container ports disagree with each other, and the annual federal series that would settle it is unread. “Eleven of N” with N taken from somebody else’s undated table is exactly the defect this site catches in others.
| What | How many of eleven | What that means |
|---|---|---|
| Ports with a median first paid day extracted from the tariffs | five | the rest fall inside residual groups no line names |
| Ports where the authority’s own free-time rule has been read | one | Savannah, Rule 34-025 — the single populated cell in that column |
| Ports where that document has at least been located | two | Los Angeles Tariff No. 4 and the New York Port Authority tariff, both unopened |
| Ports with a volume figure carrying its period | six | five carry none |
| Ports with a terminal storage tariff read | none | gap A, about 80 documents |
What each port is willing to publish about itself, ranked: what each port is willing to publish. What has been read since the last update: what we have read since the last update.
Who paid for a place in this directory
- AmericaPorts is an independent publication. It is not a port authority, a port association, a terminal operator or a federal agency, and it is not affiliated with any of them. The domain is a .com named after a country, which is why this line comes first rather than last.
- Nobody has paid for a place here. No port, terminal, carrier or intermediary has paid to appear in this index, to be positioned in it, or to be left out of it.
- No link on this site is a referral link, and there is no affiliate code on this domain. If that ever changes, the rate goes on the page carrying the link, at one rate, the same for everyone.
- An entry here is not an endorsement. The order is alphabetical or by disclosure, never by anything anyone could buy.
How every figure in this index is sourced, what each status means, and the corrections log: how every figure here is sourced.
Questions about the list of US container ports
How many container ports are there in the USA?
No total is asserted here: the annual BTS file is not read and the lists in this result set disagree with each other. What is published is this directory's own count, eleven, with the rule for entering it.
What are the 12 major ports?
Twelve major is a heading from other people's lists rather than a term from a source. Ranking by TEU, by tonnage or by cargo value produces three different twelves, and the page says which measure it is using.
What are the 20 largest ports in the United States?
Ports cannot be ordered by size while the rows are not comparable by period: this table holds CY 2025, H1 2026, June 2026 and a 2024 tonnage figure in neighbouring rows.
What are the top 5 busiest sea ports in the USA?
The quick answer for Long Beach reads 4,829,578 twenty-foot equivalent units with no period attached. The figure is right and the period is H1 2026, and without it the row cannot be compared to any other.
Which port in this directory is cheapest to import through?
On the line read in full it is New Orleans at a median of $257 for the first paid day, with Miami and Port Everglades next at $262. Neither has a profile in this directory yet, and that absence is stated rather than hidden.
Which US port should I use for Chicago?
The rail and the drayage decide it more than the port does, and no comparable drayage rate set exists in a single dated source with a sample size, so this page gives the rule and not a table.
Why is there no map on this page?
UN/LOCODEs and coordinates from a source are not read yet. A map drawn from memory is not a map, so the page ships a coast cut instead and names the gap.
Is this list ranked?
No. The default order is alphabetical. The ranked cuts are three separate pages — cost, volume and disclosure — and each is linked from here.