Why did I get a demurrage bill weeks after delivery?

The clock has to stop first

Delay charges are counted in days, so nobody can total them until the days stop. Demurrage stops when the loaded container leaves the terminal. Per diem stops when the empty is returned, which can be well after the delivery itself. Storage stops when the cargo leaves the yard or warehouse. Your first invoice, for ocean freight, customs clearance and delivery, is usually issued long before any of that, so the delay charges follow on a second or third invoice.

Then each billing party has a window

The Federal Maritime Commission’s billing rule sets how long each party may take, in 46 CFR 541.7:

• An ocean carrier or marine terminal operator has 30 calendar days from the last day the charge was incurred.
• An NVOCC passing on a carrier’s or terminal’s charge has 30 calendar days from the date of the invoice it received.
• A corrected invoice sent because the first one went to the wrong party still has to be issued within 30 days of the last day the charge was incurred.

Stack those windows on a per diem clock that ran until the empty was returned, and a bill can arrive close to two months after the last day charged and still be on time. The rule covers carriers, terminals and NVOCCs. A trucker’s or customs broker’s pass-through invoice isn’t covered by it, but the carrier or terminal invoice behind it is, so ask for that invoice and its date.

When a late invoice doesn’t have to be paid

If the party that issued the invoice missed its window, you are not required to pay it. The invoice has to show its issue date and the dates the charges cover, so the check is quick. A federal appeals court set aside a different part of the rule in 2025, the section on who may be billed; the FMC says the 30-day deadline and the content requirements still apply. This is general information, not legal advice.

How often this happens

Most shipments never see a demurrage or per diem bill. In Freight Benchmarks’ invoice data, 2.4% of US import container shipments paid demurrage and 3.7% paid per diem. The ones that do can pay a lot: 1 in 10 demurrage bills was over $2,870 per shipment. A late bill is easier to accept when you saw it coming, so track the free time and the empty return while the shipment is live, and see why freight bills come in higher than quotes for the other charges that arrive after delivery.