Who pays demurrage, the shipper or the consignee?

Who the carrier bills

Demurrage is billed by the ocean carrier or the marine terminal, and they bill the party they deal with for that container. On an import, that is usually the consignee or the importer’s forwarder, which passes the charge on to the importer. The bill builds up at the destination, after the container is discharged, which is why it lands on the importer far more often than on the overseas seller.

The Federal Maritime Commission’s 2024 billing rule set out who could properly receive a demurrage or detention invoice. In September 2025 a federal appeals court set that one section aside, and the FMC has since removed it from the regulation. The rest of the rule still applies: what an invoice must contain, the 30-day deadline to issue it, and your right to ask for a waiver or refund. See how to dispute a demurrage or detention invoice.

Who finally bears it: the sale terms

Whoever receives the invoice, the sales contract decides who ends up paying. The Incoterms rule in it splits costs between buyer and seller:

• FOB and the other “F” terms: the buyer books and pays the ocean freight, so destination costs, demurrage included, are the buyer’s.
• CFR and CIF: the seller pays freight to the destination port, but costs from delays after arrival generally fall to the buyer.
• DAP and DPU: the seller pays to get the goods to the named place and the buyer clears customs. Terminal delays are generally the seller’s cost, except those the buyer causes, such as a late customs clearance.
• DDP: the seller carries the costs to the named place, import clearance included.

Your contract can say otherwise, and it is what counts. This is general information, not legal advice.

How often it comes up

Most shipments never pay demurrage. In Freight Benchmarks’ invoice data, 2.4% of US import container shipments paid it. When it was charged, the median bill was $490 per shipment, and 1 in 10 bills was over $2,870. The share differs by port; each port page shows it, and the demurrage benchmark has the full picture. That spread is why it is worth settling who pays before the container sails, not after the invoice arrives.