Ranking · the instruments that claim to measure congestion · read 07/26/2026
US port congestion names four different things in 2026, and not one instrument that claims to measure it answers which port is least congested
- US port congestion in this result set is four different subjects sharing one word: a condition measured as vessel wait time, a monthly forecast of import volume, a set of vendor tracking products, and a surcharge carriers bill. Seven of the ten questions above these results are about the fee rather than the condition.
- US ports cannot be ranked by congestion from anything we have read. Not one vessel wait time figure for any US port has been read here, and the six instruments that claim to measure congestion are listed below with what each actually measures — because naming a least congested port would require a number none of them gave us.
- Port congestion is most often quoted here from the Global Port Tracker, which projected a month at 2.33 million TEU. That figure is a forecast of import volume, not a measurement of congestion — a busy month and a backed-up port are different claims, and the second one needs vessel wait times to support it.
- Congestion surcharge is a carrier charge and not a port charge, and it is not demurrage. It is billed under your contract of carriage rather than by the terminal or the port authority, and the capitalised Congestion Charge that several of these questions ask about is a municipal road-pricing scheme, which is a different subject entirely.
The six instruments that claim to measure US port congestion
US port congestion in 2026 is measured by six instruments that are easy to find and hard to compare, and the question people actually ask — which US port is least congested — is answered by none of them.
How this table is built · what we are paid
- This table ranks instruments, not ports. No vessel wait time figure exists for any US port in our reading, and we hold no source for one, so a port ranking here would have to be invented.
- Ordered by completeness of disclosure: read above located, located above unread, vendor products last.
- A forecast of import volume is never presented here as a measurement of congestion, even when it is the most visible number on the query.
- No congestion surcharge rate is published on this page, because no carrier’s surcharge tariff has been read.
- No company or port has paid to appear here, and no link on this site is a referral link.
| Instrument | What it actually measures | How often | Have we read it? | Does it answer “least congested”? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pacific Merchant Shipping Association | rail dwell across San Pedro Bay | monthly | yes — 5.06 days in April 2026 against 4.41 in MarchPacific Merchant Shipping Association, reported 05/20/2026 | no — that is dwell, not vessel waiting |
| Operations Dashboard, Port of Long Beach | port operations | live | found, not read | not checked yet |
| Cargo Operations Dashboard, Port of Los Angeles | cargo operations | live | found, not read | not checked yet |
| NRF and Hackett Global Port Tracker | a forecast of import volume — one month projected at 2.33 million TEU | monthly | not checked yetquoted everywhere on this query; we have not read the report | no — it forecasts volume rather than measuring a queue |
| GoComet congestion tracker | a vendor product | not checked yet | not checked yet | not checked yet |
| Portcast congestion tracker | a vendor product | not checked yet | not checked yet | not checked yet |
| Not one of the six answers which US port has the least congestion, and the most quoted of them measures a forecast of volume rather than congestion at all. | ||||
Congestion, dwell and volume are three different questions
Congestion, dwell and volume are three different questions and the market answers all three with the same headline. Congestion is how long the ship waits for a berth. Dwell is how long the box sat after it landed. Volume is how much moved in a period — and a busy month is not a backed-up port, because a port that handles a record month efficiently is not congested at all.
Vessel dwell, which times how long the ship stays alongside, is an edge case on the dwell ranking and the main subject here. What your tariff gives you regardless of any of it: how many free days each port allows.
How this congestion page 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.
What the days cost once free time runs out, priced from the tariffs: the cost stack ranked port by port.
Why no US port can be called least congested here
No US port is called least congested anywhere on this page, and the reasons are worth more than a ranking would be.
How the statuses on this site are defined, and the full list of what has not been read: how every figure here is sourced.
What the market publishes when asked about port congestion in 2026
US port congestion is the second subject on this site where the search interface itself signals that there is no stable answer.
| What we measured | Value |
|---|---|
| What the related searches carry | the engine’s own recency controls — past hour, past 24 hours, past week, past month — surfacing as related terms, which is what happens when a query has no stable answer |
| What the questions above the results ask about | seven of ten ask about a charge rather than about the condition |
| How many of those ask about a capitalised Congestion Charge | three — and that is a municipal road-pricing scheme, not an ocean freight charge |
| The most quoted number on the query | a month projected at 2.33 million TEU — a volume forecast |
| Vendor trackers named in the related set | two, both products rather than published data |
| Published vessel wait times for any US port | none we found |
our own capture of the congestion queries, Google US, 07/26/2026
The market answers about money because there is no answer about the condition. That is not cynicism about the market; it is what happens when the metric everybody names is published by nobody.
Who bills a congestion surcharge, and why it is not the port
A congestion surcharge is a carrier charge under the contract of carriage. It is not billed by the port, not billed by the terminal, and it is not demurrage — demurrage counts from your delay, the surcharge from a port condition you do not control.
| Charge | Billed by | Owed by | What triggers it | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Congestion surcharge | Ocean carrier, under the contract of carriage | The party named in the contract | a port condition you do not control | not checked yetno carrier surcharge tariff has been read |
| Bunker adjustment factor | Ocean carrier | The party named in the contract | fuel price movement — a neighbouring charge of the same class, named just as opaquely | not checked yet |
| Carrier demurrage | Ocean carrier | Consignee or the counterparty named, not both | your box staying past free time — your delay, not the port’s | $125–$390 first paid day8 of 9 tariffs · read 07/28–07/29/2026 |
| Terminal storage | Marine terminal operator | Cargo interest | the terminal’s own free time ending | not checked yetgap A |
| Anything billed by the port authority for congestion | not applicable | not applicable | no such charge appears in anything we have read | not applicable |
If a congestion surcharge appears on your invoice
A congestion surcharge on your invoice sits beside charges that answer to 46 CFR Part 541, the federal rule in force since 05/28/2024 — and one caveat belongs here rather than in the small print: that rule is written about demurrage and detention, and whether it reaches a congestion surcharge is something we have not checked. Read the current text at eCFR.
What a demurrage invoice has to contain, and how the dispute runs: the federal rules your invoice has to meet.
Descriptive, not legal advice. The contract of carriage and the tariff in your own file govern your case.
The three instruments closest to an answer, and what each one is missing
Three of the six instruments come closest to answering the question, and each falls short in a different way.
1 · The association’s monthly figure — read, and about something else
Rail dwell across the Los Angeles and Long Beach bay: 5.06 days in April 2026 against 4.41 in March. It is the only operational figure on this page with a month and a dated source, and it measures how long boxes waited for a train rather than how long ships waited for a berth.
Pacific Merchant Shipping Association, reported 05/20/2026 · what it costs to land a box at los angeles
2 · The two live dashboards — closest to the subject, and unread
The ports themselves run operations dashboards covering this bay. They are the nearest thing to a real congestion instrument in our whole reading, and neither has been opened. That is our gap rather than theirs, and reading them would improve this page and the dwell ranking at once.
found in the results 07/26/2026 · what it costs to land a box at long beach
3 · The most quoted number — a forecast of volume
A month projected at 2.33 million TEU is the figure this query returns most often. It forecasts how much cargo will arrive, which is not a measurement of whether ships are waiting. A record month handled smoothly is a busy port and not a congested one.
quoted in the results, report not read · what it costs to land a box at savannah
Where the word congestion does not apply
The word congestion does not apply in five places where it appears anyway.
- The capitalised Congestion Charge is a road-pricing scheme. Three of the ten questions above these results are about exemptions from a municipal driving charge that shares the phrase. It has nothing to do with ocean freight.
- A volume forecast is not a congestion measurement. The most visible number on this query predicts arriving cargo.
- Dwell is not congestion. Dwell counts the box after it lands; congestion counts the ship before it does.
- A vendor tracker is a product, not a published dataset. Two are named in these results; neither publishes a methodology we have read.
- A live number this site cannot refresh is worse than none. The nearest dated quantity moves about 15% in a month, so no “today” figure appears anywhere on this page.
How fast congestion changes, and why an undated figure is useless
Congestion changes faster than this page could track it, and the evidence is the one dated operational quantity we hold: bay rail dwell moved from 4.41 days in March 2026 to 5.06 in April, about 15% in a single month. If a neighbouring quantity moves that fast, an undated congestion figure is useless — which is also why the search engine offers hour and day filters on this query, and why this page publishes no live numbers it cannot maintain.
What would change this page is a source for vessel wait times. Until one exists, the table above ranks the instruments rather than pretending to rank the ports.
Questions about US port congestion and the congestion surcharge
Which US ports have the least congestion?
Nothing we have read answers it: no vessel wait time figure exists for any US port in our reading. Instead of inventing a ranking of ports, this page ranks the six instruments that claim to measure congestion and says what each one actually measures.
What is a congestion surcharge in shipping?
A charge the carrier bills under your contract of carriage when a port is congested. It is not a port charge and not a terminal charge, and no carrier's surcharge tariff has been read here, so no rate is published.
Who pays a congestion surcharge?
The party named in the contract of carriage. That is a different document from the tariff that governs demurrage, and a different biller from the terminal that invoices storage.
Is a congestion surcharge the same as demurrage?
No. Demurrage counts from your own lateness after free time expires. A congestion surcharge follows a condition at the port that you do not control, and it arrives from the carrier rather than from the terminal.
What is the NRF Global Port Tracker?
A monthly forecast of import volume, quoted in these results as projecting a month at 2.33 million TEU. It is the most cited number on this subject and it does not measure congestion — a busy month is not a backed-up port.
Is US port congestion bad in 2026?
We hold no vessel wait time figures to answer with. The nearest dated operational quantity we do hold moved about 15% in one month, which is why an undated answer to this question is not worth much from anyone.
What is a port congestion tracker?
A class of vendor product. Two appear by name in these results and neither has been read here, so both sit in the table with their measurement and their cadence marked unknown.
Who is exempt from the Congestion Charge?
That question is about a municipal road-pricing scheme rather than ocean freight, and it is not answered here. It arrives on this query because the two share a phrase.
Congestion is how long the ship waits, dwell is how long the box sat, and volume is how much moved. The pages that answer the other two are linked above, and the reason all three are separate is that one number cannot carry three subjects.