Shippers pay $15.4 billion in demurrage and detention fees for port delays they did not cause, and a court just struck down their main legal protection

Between April 2020 and March 2025, ocean carriers billed shippers approximately $15.4 billion in demurrage and detention charges. Demurrage accrues when a container sits at the port terminal past its free time, and detention accrues when a shipper keeps the carrier's container past its allowed period. The fundamental injustice is that most of these charges stem from delays the shipper did not cause: port congestion, chassis shortages, terminal appointment unavailability, or customs holds. The shipper's container is physically at the port, but the shipper cannot pick it up because no chassis is available or the terminal has no appointments — and the meter keeps running anyway. The financial impact is severe. Demurrage rates at major US ports run $150 to $400 per container per day and escalate on a tiered schedule. A container stuck for two weeks can accumulate $3,000 to $6,000 in charges — on cargo that might only be worth $20,000 to $50,000. For small importers, these charges can exceed their profit margin on the entire shipment. The charges also cascade: a trucking company that cannot get a chassis to pick up the container passes the delay cost to the freight forwarder, who passes it to the importer, who passes it to the consumer. In May 2024, the FMC finalized rules requiring transparent billing and limiting who could be charged. But in September 2025, the D.C. Circuit Court vacated the key provision in World Shipping Council v. FMC, ruling the FMC's approach to determining who can be billed was arbitrary. This leaves the question of which parties may lawfully be invoiced completely unsettled. The structural problem is that carriers earn revenue from D&D charges — it is a profit center, not just cost recovery — so they have no financial incentive to fix the port inefficiencies that generate these charges in the first place.