# Demurrage and Detention: The Practical Guide to Stop Overpaying

> The most avoidable charges in the entire supply chain — and among the most margin-destroying. What they are, why they happen, and the six tactics we use so our clients almost never pay them.

Source: https://www.freightspot.com/en/blog/demurrage-detention-almacenajes-guia-para-no-pagar-de-mas · Updated: 2026-07-10 · Publisher: FreightSpot

There is a kind of logistics cost that appears on no quote, adds zero value to your product, and can exceed the entire freight bill if the operation gets away from you: time charges. Demurrage, detention and storage are the supply chain’s silent fine — and the good news is that they are, for the most part, avoidable.

## First, the names of things

- **Demurrage:** the carrier’s charge for keeping its container inside the terminal beyond the agreed free days.
- **Detention:** the charge for holding the container outside the terminal (at your warehouse, for example) beyond the deadline to return it empty.
- **Storage:** what the terminal or bonded facility charges for the space your cargo occupies while it isn’t released.

All three run in parallel and accrue by the day. A container stuck for a week over a documentation problem can generate hundreds of dollars per day across the three concepts — money that comes straight out of your margin and that no insurance covers.

> Demurrage is not a transportation cost: it is the price of the days your operation wasn’t ready.

## Why do they really happen?

Almost never by bad luck. In our experience, the vast majority of time charges are born of foreseeable causes: incomplete or inconsistent documents at arrival, tax payments released late, inspections that get complicated by a misdeclared tariff code, trucking that wasn’t coordinated with the actual release date, or simply nobody watching the free days tick away.

## Six tactics to stop paying them

- **Negotiate enough free days from the quote.** The standard isn’t the same across carriers or lanes, and extending them costs far less than paying them expired.
- **Have the complete document file BEFORE arrival:** invoice, packing list, transport document, permits and proof of origin if applicable.
- **Run a pre-shipment inspection at origin** when the goods or the supplier are new — catching a discrepancy at the factory costs a fraction of catching it at destination customs.
- **Leave tax payment and clearance instructions ready** before the cargo touches port.
- **Coordinate trucking against the actual release date,** with a backup operator.
- **Watch the clocks:** free days, terminal cutoffs and the empty-return deadline. If nobody watches them, nobody respects them.

## Visibility is half the solution

When the importer sees the same thing as their agent — clearance status, free days running, pending documents — time charges collapse. It’s one of the reasons we built our platform: every shipment shows its critical dates and what’s missing for release, before the clock becomes a fine.

More terms you want to master? Our logistics glossary at freightspot.com/recursos/glosario explains demurrage, detention, free days and the rest of your operation’s vocabulary in plain words. And if you’re paying these charges on a recurring basis today, write to us — auditing where your time goes is one of the highest-return exercises in logistics.

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