Ranking · drayage figures, ranked by how checkable each one is · read 07/26/2026
Drayage rates are published by radius rather than by port, and the best-disclosed figure we found names no port at all
- Drayage rates are published constantly and almost never by port. The figures in these results are anchored to a mileage band — a typical rate within about 30 miles of the terminal — so the axis this query names does not exist in the documents that answer it. Google says as much itself on the second query, reporting that the word usa is missing from the pages it ranked.
- US container ports are quoted through two vendor ranges that disagree at both ends: $250 to $800 per container in a guide dated 2025, and $400 to $900 per container in the Los Angeles results. Neither states a sample size and neither says what is included, so a reader who finds both learns only that the number lies somewhere across a factor of 3.6.
- Drayage figures rank here by how much of each is checkable, and the top three are the 2025 range of $250 to $800, which carries a date and a stated radius; the Los Angeles range of $400 to $900, which is the only figure attached to a port and carries neither; and the per-mile rates in the questions above, which are what a trucker charges rather than what an importer pays.
- Motor carriers bill the road leg rather than the port or the terminal, except under carrier haulage, where the ocean carrier arranges it inside its own documents. Which of the two applies is a term of your booking, and it decides who you would argue with. The federal invoice rules cited elsewhere on this site govern demurrage and detention, not the road rate.
Every drayage figure in these results, ranked by how much of it is checkable
Drayage is the road leg from the terminal to your door, and it is the line this site cannot price at any port. Here is every figure in these results, ordered by how much of it can be checked.
How this table is built · what we are paid
- This table ranks figures, not ports. No figure in these results supports a per-port order: the sources price a distance band around a terminal, which is a different axis from the one the question asks about.
- Nothing here is a read primary source. Every figure carries the status of something quoted in the market, and the ranking order is by how much of each figure is disclosed rather than by price.
- The two ranges are shown as ranges and never averaged. Neither states a sample size, so a midpoint would carry more authority than either input — the precise defect this site exists to catch.
- No figure is attached to a port that did not attach it itself.
- No drayage company, port, terminal or broker has paid to appear here or to be absent, and no link on this site is a referral link.
| Figure | Unit | Attached to | Date | Sample size | Can it rank ports? |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| $250 – $800 | per container | a radius of about 30 miles — no port | a guide whose title carries 2025 | not published | no — it names no port |
| $400 – $900 | per container | Los Angeles | not published | not published | no — one port is not an order |
| not published | a fuel surcharge | named as a component in the results | not applicable | not applicable | no |
| not published | a chassis split | named as a component, and often already inside the rate | not applicable | not applicable | no |
| not published | per mile | the carrier’s revenue question, not the importer’s bill | not applicable | not applicable | no |
| The inversion is the finding. The best-disclosed figure in the whole capture names no port at all — it prices a radius. The only figure attached to a port is the worse disclosed of the two: no date, no sample size. Together the two ranges span $250 to $900, a factor of 3.6, which is wider than the spread of any tariff group read anywhere on this site. | |||||
our own capture of the drayage queries, Google US · read 07/26/2026
What a drayage rate measures, and what a radius is not
Drayage is the road move between the terminal and a delivery point, and what the sources price is a radius — a distance band around a terminal, usually 25 or 30 miles. A rate quoted within a radius says nothing about which terminal it starts from, which is exactly the axis the question asks about.
It is also not the clock: free time and demurrage run on a different document and a different page — how many free days each port allows. And it is not a per-mile rate, which is the motor carrier’s revenue question rather than your invoice.
How this drayage ranking is built, and who paid for a place in it
What we are paid
- Nothing on this page has been paid for. No port, terminal or carrier has paid to appear here, to be positioned here, or to be left out, and no outbound link on this site is a referral link.
- If that ever changes, the rate goes on the page carrying the link, at one rate, the same for everyone — and a position in a table still will not be for sale.
The one line of the stack read end to end, and how the ports rank on it: the cost stack ranked port by port.
Why no US port can be given a drayage rate here
No US port is given a drayage rate anywhere on this site, and this page is where that absence is explained rather than repeated.
That hatched line appears in every cost stack on this site, and this is the page it points at.
What the market publishes when asked what drayage costs at a port
Asked what drayage costs at a port, the market answers what the word means and how to calculate the charge. These are our own counts across the queries this page was built from.
| What we measured | Value |
|---|---|
| The engine’s own notice on one of these queries | the word “usa” is reported missing from the documents it ranked — the second time a service line has supplied a finding on this site |
| The unit the sources actually use | a per-container rate inside a mileage band — 25 miles and 30 miles both appear |
| The dominant genre of the results | guides — “understanding drayage”, “calculating drayage” — and the second and third related entries ask what the word means |
| Markets whose drayage rates are asked for by name | six — and four of them are ports no carrier tariff names as its own group |
| Questions asked from the other side of the invoice | three of nine ask what to charge per mile rather than what to pay |
| Dates present in one result set | items from 2023, 2025 and 2026 together |
our own capture of the drayage queries, Google US, 07/26/2026
Where the tariff is silent, the road quote is the only figure attachable to a port by name — and at four of the six markets people ask about, the tariff is exactly that. The least documented line in the stack is the only one those ports have.
Who bills the road leg, and why the answer depends on your booking
Who bills the road leg depends on your booking rather than on the port, and one carrier’s document set proves it.
| Party | When it bills you | Under what | Published rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| A motor carrier you booked directly | you arranged the road leg yourself | a quote | not publishedgap F |
| Your forwarder | the move is inside a door-to-door service | the forwarder’s quote | not published |
| The ocean carrier | the box moves under carrier haulage | the carrier’s own inland terms — one of the nine publishes four separate demurrage documents split by haulage type and by place, which is documentary proof that who runs the leg is a term of the booking | not publishedthe road rate appears in none of those four |
| The chassis provider | the chassis is billed separately rather than folded in | a pool tariff | not checked yetgap G — and where the chassis is already inside the drayage rate it cannot be separated out |
If a drayage invoice looks wrong, the argument is not the federal one
A drayage invoice that looks wrong is not argued on the federal rules cited elsewhere on this site. Those govern demurrage and detention billing by ocean carriers; a road rate is a motor carrier’s charge under a contract, and a reader who has learned the first rule is exactly the reader most likely to assume it covers the second.
What makes two road quotes comparable is four fields: the radius assumed, whether the chassis is inside the rate, whether the fuel surcharge is a percentage or a flat addition, and what happens beyond the radius. A quote missing any of them cannot be set against another one.
What the federal rules do cover, and how to test that invoice: the federal rules your invoice has to meet.
The three ports this page can link, and what each one lets you check
The table above ranks figures, so these three are not its top three — they are the three ports this page can hand you, and what each one lets you check.
Los Angeles — the only port-attached figure on the site
$400 to $900 per container circulates for this port with no date and no sample size behind it. It appears on the port profile as a vendor figure and is never averaged into any index. It is the weaker of the two ranges on this page and the only one naming a port.
market consensus · seen 07/26/2026 · what it costs to land a box at los angeles
Long Beach — shares the bay, and the figure is not read across
The tariffs group these two ports for demurrage; the vendor range does not claim to cover both. Reading the Los Angeles figure across the bay would manufacture a second port-attached figure out of nothing, so this port has none.
Savannah — the other half of the bill documented, this half empty
The best-documented port on this site for the ocean-side clock: a median first paid day from seven tariff lines and the only port authority free-time rule read end to end. On the road leg it has nothing at all, which is the ordinary state of every US port.
Where a drayage rate does not apply
A drayage figure stops applying in five places, and the first of them voids the headline range entirely.
- Beyond the radius. The best-disclosed figure on this page is quoted within about 30 miles of a terminal. Outside that band its premise is gone, and none of the sources says what replaces it.
- Under carrier haulage the move is not yours to quote. The ocean carrier arranges and bills it, under terms that are part of your booking rather than of a road-rate market.
- From a rail ramp rather than a port the origin is different and so is the clock — the ramp starts counting at grounding rather than at discharge.
- Where the chassis is folded into the rate, adding a separate chassis line double-counts it, and where it is folded in it cannot be separated out at all.
- A per-mile rate belongs to the other side of the invoice. Three of the nine questions above these results are asked by the person sending the bill, not the one paying it.
How often a drayage figure changes, and why an undated one is unusable
No cadence can be given for drayage, because we hold no series for it — and that is worth stating as plainly as a number would be.
What is reproducible: this one result set carries items dated 2023, 2025 and 2026 together; the headline range carries a year in its title and the port-attached range carries no date at all; and the fuel surcharge inside every quote moves with a fuel price that none of the figures states. A range whose date is unknown cannot be aged, which is why the date sits in the table above rather than in a footnote.
Questions about drayage rates and what they cover
What are drayage rates by port?
Not published in that form. The figures in these results are anchored to a radius around a terminal rather than to a named port, and the only port-attached range we hold, $400 to $900 at Los Angeles, has no date and no sample size behind it.
What is a drayage rate?
The price of a short container move between a port or ramp and a nearby destination, normally quoted per container within a mileage band. The band is the part most often left out of a quote, and it is what makes two quotes with the same total non-comparable.
How to calculate drayage cost?
The published guides answer this and we do not repeat them, because the inputs they ask for — the radius, the fuel surcharge basis, the chassis and the accessorials — are exactly the fields no source states. Getting those four named in your own quote is worth more than any average.
Why is drayage so expensive?
The question assumes a level we cannot verify. What we can say is that the two circulating ranges disagree at both ends and span a factor of 3.6 between them, which means nobody publishing them is describing the same move.
What is the difference between truckload and drayage?
Distance and unit. A drayage move is short and quoted per container within a radius; truckload is long-haul and quoted per mile. The per-mile figures in these results belong to the second and are asked by the people sending the invoice rather than receiving it.
Do published drayage rates include the chassis?
Sometimes, and where it is, a separate chassis line duplicates it. We cannot tell from our data which quotes fold it in, and that is one of the reasons a comparable rate set does not exist. Ask before comparing two quotes.
Who bills drayage?
The motor carrier, unless your booking is carrier haulage and the ocean carrier arranges the inland leg itself. One of the nine tariffs we read is split into separate documents for the two cases, which shows the distinction is a contractual term rather than a property of the port.
Do the federal demurrage rules cover a drayage invoice?
No. Those rules are about demurrage and detention billing. A drayage charge is a motor carrier's charge under a contract, and a dispute about it is a contract dispute with a different counterparty.
Which port has the cheapest drayage?
Unanswerable from anything published. Four of the six markets people ask this about — Charleston, Baltimore, Houston and Oakland — are also ports that no carrier tariff names as its own group, so at those four neither half of the bill can be checked by port name.
Drayage is the largest unpriced line in the stack, and the reason is not secrecy: the service is sold by distance band and the question is asked by port. Until one dated source publishes it the other way, this page ranks what can be checked rather than what would look like an answer.