The charges on an ocean freight invoice, decoded
Four different parties bill lines onto one ocean invoice, and only two of those lines have a rate fixed by statute. Who set each charge, where to check it, and which ones you are entitled to refuse outright.
An ocean freight invoice is never one charge. It is a base ocean rate, plus surcharges set in the carrier’s tariff or service contract, plus terminal and equipment charges set locally at the port, plus government fees fixed by regulation, plus your own fees. Only the government fees have a published statutory rate. Everything else is contractual — which also means it is checkable, because a US carrier’s tariff must be available to any person over the internet, free of charge.
Four billing parties, not one
Before arguing about an amount, work out who set it.
- The ocean carrier or NVOCC — base freight and everything in its tariff or service contract: bunker, terminal handling, documentation, manifest fees, detention.
- The marine terminal and the port — storage (demurrage), wharfage, and gate programmes such as PierPass at Los Angeles and Long Beach.
- The drayman and the chassis provider — the move, chassis days, waiting time, and the chassis split.
- Your broker, or you — entry preparation, ISF transmission, and the customs fees the broker collects and remits to CBP but does not set.
A line you cannot map to one of those four is a line to query before it is passed to your customer.
The line items
| Line | Who sets it | What drives the amount |
|---|---|---|
| Ocean freight | Carrier or NVOCC | Lane, equipment, and whether you are on a service contract or the open tariff |
| BAF / bunker | Carrier | A fuel formula in the tariff, usually indexed and trade-specific. It moves without your rate moving |
| THC, origin and destination | Carrier | Port and container size. Two separate charges — check which end your quote included |
| Documentation / bill of lading fee | Carrier or NVOCC | Per bill of lading, not per container |
| AMS / manifest fee | Carrier or NVOCC | Per bill. It exists because CBP must receive the vessel’s cargo declaration 24 hours before lading abroad |
| ISF filing fee | Broker, forwarder or self-filing software | Per filing, and commercial rather than governmental — see the ISF form and its fee |
| PierPass TMF | PierPass, LA/Long Beach only | From 1 August 2026, $40.63 per TEU and $81.26 for all other sizes, on non-exempt containers |
| Chassis usage and chassis split | Chassis provider, drayman | Days out, plus a split charge when box and chassis are not in the same place — see chassis splits explained |
| Demurrage and detention | Terminal, and carrier | Free time consumed. Regulated as to billing, not as to amount — see demurrage tracking |
| Harbor maintenance fee | Statute | 0.125% (.00125) of the value of the cargo |
| Merchandise processing fee | Statute, adjusted annually | 0.3464% ad valorem; for fiscal year 2026 not less than $33.58 and not more than $651.50 per formal entry, plus $4.03 if filed manually |
The last two are not freight charges. They arise on the customs entry, are collected by the broker and remitted to CBP, and belong on a different part of the file from anything the carrier billed.
Two deadlines that turn a fee into a claim
The 24-hour rule and the ISF share a clock, and are routinely treated as one filing. They are not.
- The vessel’s cargo declaration. CBP must receive the electronic equivalent of the Cargo Declaration from the incoming carrier 24 hours before the cargo is laden aboard at the foreign port (19 CFR 4.7(b)(2)). That is the carrier’s filing; the AMS fee is the carrier recovering it.
- The Importer Security Filing. Due no later than 24 hours before lading (19 CFR 149.2(b)), with two carve-outs: the container stuffing location and consolidator elements are due as early as possible and no later than 24 hours prior to arrival at a US port — or upon lading, where the foreign port is less than a 24-hour voyage from the nearest US port, and an ISF for freight remaining on board may be filed any time prior to lading.
The money on the second is not the filing fee. Under CBP’s published guidelines, port directors may assess liquidated damages of $5,000 per late ISF, $5,000 per inaccurate ISF, $5,000 for a first inaccurate update and $5,000 for a failure to withdraw. Two things temper that. A claim may be cancelled on payment of $1,000 to $2,000 for a first violation, and not less than $2,500 for a subsequent one, where CBP finds law-enforcement goals were not compromised. And on an inaccurate filing — not a late one — there is an extraordinary mitigating factor written for the forwarder’s exact position: where the filing party took the information from another party in accordance with ordinary commercial practices, reasonably believed it true, and was not reasonably able to verify it, the claim may be cancelled without payment. Where no bond is in place, liquidated damages cannot be assessed at all — CBP withholds release of the cargo instead, which is usually worse.
What you are entitled to refuse
Demurrage and detention are the one part of an ocean invoice where the billing itself is regulated. Under 46 CFR part 541 the invoice must carry a defined minimum: bill of lading and container numbers, port of discharge, the basis for holding the billed party liable, free time allowed with its start and end dates, the container availability or earliest return date, the dates charged, the applicable rule and rate, the total, and contact details for a mitigation request. Omitting any of it “eliminates any obligation of the billed party to pay the applicable charge” (46 CFR 541.5). The invoice must issue within 30 calendar days of the date the charge was last incurred, and an NVOCC passing one on has 30 days from the date it received the invoice (46 CFR 541.7). You then have at least 30 days from issuance to request mitigation, refund or waiver, and the billing party has 30 days to resolve it (46 CFR 541.8).
One current caveat: on 23 September 2025 the US Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit set aside 46 CFR 541.4, which specified who such an invoice could be sent to, and it has been removed from the CFR. Contents, deadline and dispute windows are unaffected; who may properly be billed is back to statute and contract.
What goes wrong
- The quote was all-in and the invoice was not. Origin THC quoted, destination THC billed. A scoping failure, not a carrier error, and the commonest charge dispute there is.
- Bunker moved after the quote. A fixed all-in rate carries the fuel risk; a rate sold “plus BAF as per tariff” does not.
- Per-bill charges multiplied by a split. Documentation and manifest fees are per bill of lading; a booking split into two bills doubles them.
- A chassis split nobody priced. Box at one terminal, chassis at another, and a routine drayage move acquires a charge no one quoted.
- Free time counted from the wrong date. Demurrage runs from container availability, detention from the day the box left the terminal.
- A late invoice paid anyway. One issued more than 30 days after the charge was last incurred need not be paid — if anyone checked first.
How software handles it
The requirement is unglamorous: every charge on the file carries a buy side, a sell side and the party it came from, so a surcharge that arrived on a carrier invoice is visible against the rate that was quoted. Linbis prices a quote from stored contract rates and surcharges rather than a retyped spreadsheet, and runs demurrage, detention, terminal storage and chassis per-diem as four separate live counters per container, each with its own free days and daily rate, so exposure is priced before it is invoiced. Bills, arrival notices and delivery orders come off the same record, and AMS and ISF data is prepared from it — see the ocean shipment page.
Questions operators ask
What is THC on an ocean freight invoice?
Terminal handling charge — the carrier’s recovery of the terminal’s cost of moving the container between quay and yard. There is one at origin and one at destination, set per port and per container size. A quote saying “THC included” without saying which end is ambiguous.
Is the ISF fee a government charge?
No. CBP charges nothing to receive an ISF. The fee on your invoice is your broker’s, forwarder’s or software provider’s charge for transmitting it. The government exposure is the liquidated-damages claim for filing late or inaccurately.
Who pays the PierPass traffic mitigation fee?
It is assessed on non-exempt containers moving through the Los Angeles and Long Beach terminals and normally passed to cargo interests. Empty containers, transshipment cargo, cargo already subject to an Alameda Corridor Transportation Authority fee, empty chassis and bobtail trucks are exempt.
Can I look up a carrier’s surcharges myself?
Yes, in US trades. Common carriers and conferences must keep tariffs open for public inspection in automated systems, provide internet access to any person without time or quantity limits, and provide that access free of charge (46 CFR 520.3 and 520.9). If a surcharge is not in the tariff or your service contract, ask where it comes from.
What is the difference between demurrage and detention?
Demurrage is charged for a container sitting inside the terminal beyond its free time; detention for equipment held outside the terminal beyond its free time. Different parties bill them and different clocks run them.
We already have the rates in a spreadsheet — why change?
A spreadsheet holds the rate. It does not hold which surcharges that rate included, it does not count free days in real time, and it will not tell you a demurrage invoice arrived on day 34 and is therefore not payable. The gap between quoted and invoiced is where a forwarder’s margin goes, and it is only visible when both sides sit on one record. Linbis starts at $150 per month including one user, with a free trial and no credit card.