What are the Key Takeaways from this Executive Summary?
Quick answer
- Two charges, two clocks. Demurrage runs at the port. Detention runs inland, on the equipment.
- The usual causes are structural, not careless. Port congestion, paperwork, customs holds, and not knowing where the box is.
- Some lines are disputable. Terminal closures, customs examinations, vessel delay before you could act. What share that is for you is a number only your own invoices can give, and almost nobody has counted it.
What Are Demurrage and Detention Fees, and Why Do They Matter?
Quick answer
The difference is simple and worth getting right.
Demurrage starts when the container comes off the vessel and sits at the terminal uncollected. How much free time you get is set by the carrier’s tariff, and it varies by lane and contract. After that, the daily rate steps up on a published tier schedule. Look up the tariff for the lane you use most; the tiers are in it.
Detention starts when you take the loaded box off the terminal. The clock is on returning the empty unit to the depot. Miss that and detention applies at a daily rate, again set by tariff.
For a CFO reading quarterly freight spend, neither appears in the rate agreement. They arrive weeks later on supplemental invoices, under adjustment codes that the accounts payable team has no context to challenge. So they get paid.
Why Do Demurrage and Detention Costs Spiral Out of Control?
Quick answer
The charges exist to keep cargo moving. The supply chain they are applied to does not move smoothly. Four things push containers past free time.
Congestion. When vessels bunch and terminals run full, drayage appointments slip and boxes sit. The shipper pays even when the delay is entirely on the terminal’s side.
Paperwork and customs. One missing certificate, a filing error, or a mismatch between the invoice and the bill of lading can trigger a hold. Demurrage runs while it is sorted out. At volume these are not exceptions; they happen every week.
Split container tracking. Most shippers track boxes across carrier websites, forwarder emails and a spreadsheet. By the time a coordinator sees that a container has sat five days, three of those days are billable.
Invoice opacity. Free time varies by carrier, lane, terminal and contract tier. The supplemental invoice arrives weeks after the event, listing container numbers with no operational context. Many companies pay because checking one charge costs more than the charge. That logic holds per invoice and fails across a year of them.
Related: how freight charges can be read against the contract and the operational record — see our use cases.
How Large Is the Global Financial Impact of Demurrage and Detention?
Quick answer
Research by Container xChange puts the average demurrage and detention cost per container between $500 and $2,000, depending on port and duration, with outliers above $10,000 for a single box caught in a congested corridor.
The UNCTAD Review of Maritime Transport treats these charges as a material barrier to trade competitiveness, and notes the weight falls hardest on developing economies.
The World Shipping Council has documented how congestion surcharges stack on top of demurrage, so the effective daily cost of a stalled box is higher than the tariff line suggests.
Now the number that decides anything. Pull last year’s accessorial invoices and total the demurrage and detention lines. Then split that total by cause: congestion, customs, paperwork, late collection. Most operations have never done this, which is why the charge is treated as weather rather than as a cost with owners.
How Can Better Visibility and Dispute Handling Cut These Costs?
Quick answer
The best defence is not negotiating longer free time. It is closing the information gaps that let boxes overstay. Three capabilities, and they are not the same thing.
Watch the clock. Pull terminal events, carrier milestones and gate transactions into one view, and you have a live countdown of free time per container. Alerts at two days, one day and zero give dispatch time to reprioritise a pickup before charges start.
Predict arrival. A model trained on past port calls, weather and terminal productivity can estimate arrival differently from the carrier’s published time. That lets brokers pre-clear paperwork and drayage book against a realistic date. Treat the prediction as a model output: compare predicted against actual for a month before scheduling against it.
Check the invoice. Not every charge is valid. Carriers bill for days the terminal was closed, for days a box was under customs examination and exempt under their own tariff, and for free time consumed by vessel delay before the consignee could act. Checking invoice lines against terminal events, the free time terms and the exemption rules is what finds those, and it has to happen inside the dispute window stated in the tariff.
Note what each one does and does not do. The countdown prevents charges that were about to start. The prediction improves the odds that a pickup lines up with the box being available. The invoice check recovers only charges the records show were invalid; it does not negotiate, and it will not recover a valid charge. A programme sold as one percentage saving is hiding which of the three it is doing.
The Runink FACE use cases set out how accessorial charges are read against the contract and the operational record, and what is handed to a person to decide.
Conclusion
Quick answer
Every container sitting at a terminal is capital in a queue, and you are paying rent on the delay.
Runink FACE works on the reading part. It compares a charge against the free time terms and the operational record for the same container. Where the records do not support the charge, it raises that container by name with the evidence attached, for whoever signs disputes to decide. The recovery figure is whatever your team then wins, and the filing stays with the person who signs it.
The first number worth having is your own: total demurrage and detention paid last year, split by cause. Schedule a consultation if it would help to work it out.
Sources
- UNCTAD Review of Maritime Transport — source for the trade barrier point above
- Container xChange: demurrage and detention research — source for the per-container figures above
- World Shipping Council — source for the congestion surcharge point above
- U.S. Federal Maritime Commission: demurrage and detention guidance — the rules on what counts as reasonable in U.S. trade
