Free Time

What it means

There is no single national number for free time. The days allowed, the event that starts the count and whether weekends count all come from the marine terminal's schedule, the ocean carrier's tariff or the shipper's service contract. That is why the FMC's billing rule requires every demurrage or detention invoice to show the allowed free time in days, the start and end dates of free time, the container availability date for imports, the earliest return date for exports, and the specific dates that were charged.^[1]

The last free day is the final day a container can sit at a port, terminal or rail yard before demurrage starts; after it, charges accrue per container per day until the box leaves.^[2] Carriers use the same term in their own rules: Hapag-Lloyd's U.S. guide, for example, ties free demurrage on certain moves to customs release happening before the "Last Free Day" at the inland terminal.^[5]

Free time exists to get boxes moving, not to raise revenue. In the final recommendations of Fact Finding Investigation No. 28, FMC Commissioner Rebecca Dye described demurrage and detention as financial incentives for cargo interests to retrieve cargo and return equipment, and said that, absent extenuating circumstances, charges should be suspended when shippers are prevented from picking up cargo or returning containers within the time allotted.^[6] The FMC's reasonableness rule now looks at whether practices tie demurrage or free time to when cargo is actually available for retrieval, and how cargo interests are notified that it is available.^[3]

How free time is counted: one terminal's rules

Each terminal publishes its own schedule. As one real example from the Port Newark–Elizabeth complex, the Maher Terminals marine terminal schedule (revision dated 2 February 2026) sets these rules for imports:^[7]

• How many days. Four Working Days for general cargo containers, and two Working Days for refrigerated containers and special equipment.
• What a Working Day is. Any calendar day, weekends and holidays included, on which the terminal gate is open for delivery.
• When the clock starts. At gate opening on the first Working Day after the container reaches its first point of rest on the terminal and is updated in the terminal system. If that happens after the gate opens, free time starts the next Working Day.
• What happens after. Demurrage is charged per calendar day in rising tiers and must be paid before the cargo is delivered.

The same schedule says the terminal may, at its discretion, honor an ocean carrier's own demurrage provisions, so the free time on a given import can come from the carrier's tariff rather than the terminal's.^[7] Carrier rules add their own wrinkles: Hapag-Lloyd excludes scheduled bank holidays and unplanned shutout days from free time and extends the free days to match, then charges on a calendar basis once free time has expired.^[5]

Export free time and the last receiving day (LRD)

On the export side the dates run the other way. A vessel has a receiving window: the earliest date the terminal will accept a full export container for that sailing, and a cutoff after which it will not. In shipping, LRD is commonly read as the last receiving day (or date), the last day an export box can be delivered for a particular vessel. The FMC's billing rule calls the opening date the "earliest return date" and requires it on export invoices.^[1]

These dates are set per vessel and per carrier. A National Shipper Advisory Committee recommendation to the FMC noted that a single vessel calling a U.S. port can carry two, three or four different early return dates and documentation and physical cargo cutoffs, depending on which alliance carrier issued the booking.^[8] The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey tells truckers to get receiving dates and cutoffs from the steamship line or the terminal's website or app, and one terminal in its guidebook will not book an export drop-off appointment before or after the ship's receiving window.^[9]

Once an export box is in, terminal free time runs until loading. At Maher, export free time begins at 12:01 a.m. on the day after the cargo is received, and no demurrage is assessed after the vessel starts loading.^[7]

Why it matters

Every day past the last free day is a charge, and on most terminal schedules the daily rate climbs the longer the box stays. If a receiver cannot take a container before its LFD, pulling it out of the terminal and unloading it elsewhere stops the terminal clock. RapidShips runs a 24/7 cross-dock in East Brunswick, NJ, serving the Port Newark–Elizabeth corridor, that devans containers and holds freight short term for exactly this situation; the drayage carrier still has to make the pickup.

Example

Illustrative only: an importer's 40-ft container is discharged and grounded on a Monday morning after the gate has opened. Under a terminal schedule that gives four Working Days and counts every day the gate is open, free time starts at gate opening Tuesday and the last free day is Friday. If the box were still there, Saturday would be the first day of demurrage. The importer books a pickup for Thursday, the drayage carrier pulls the box to a warehouse, and no demurrage accrues. The container's separate detention free days then start counting toward the empty return.

Is demurrage the same as storage?

Often it is the same charge under a different name, but not always. The FMC found the industry lacks standard terminology and, in its 2020 interpretive rule, defined demurrage and detention broadly to cover every charge customarily called demurrage, detention or per diem. It discouraged using "storage" and "per diem" as synonyms because they add complexity.^[10]

In practice, an import can face two parallel bills for the same days on the terminal: the ocean carrier's line demurrage and the terminal operator's storage. Hapag-Lloyd's U.S. guide shows both. Its carrier haulage demurrage tariff includes marine terminal storage fees, while during a customs hold it stops its own demurrage clock but leaves the customer responsible for any storage the terminal operator charges.^[5] Ask who is billing and under which tariff rule before assuming one charge covers the other.

Frequently asked questions