Demurrage, Detention & Cargo Claims: The Charcoal Importer's Playbook
By Mohamad Sinno, Charcoal Expert · Reviewed by Budi Hartanto, shipping specialist, 25 years in forwarding as of 2026 · Last updated
Prevention first: two clocks start when your container is discharged
Two clocks start at discharge. The money clock — demurrage inside the terminal, detention once the box leaves — and the evidence clock, which governs how long you have to record damage and bring a claim. Almost everything that stops the first faster weakens the second. If your cargo is sound, just move it. If it is not, read the second half first. Either way it sits downstream of the container stuffing rules and freight terms behind a charcoal shipment.
Demurrage runs inside the terminal, detention after the box leaves it
The events below come from one carrier's published US tariff (Ocean Network Express, fetched 1 August 2026). Your own carrier's tariff governs your box, and the container availability date that starts the clock is set by the terminal, not the carrier.
| Charge | Where the box is | Clock starts | Clock stops |
|---|---|---|---|
| Demurrage | Inside the terminal | First full day the container is available for pick-up after vessel discharge | Gate-out of the full container |
| Detention | Outside the terminal | Laden container outgate | Gate-in of the empty |
| Terminal storage | Inside the terminal | The terminal's own tariff | Billed separately outside the US; folded into demurrage at US water ports |
A UN 1361 Class 4.2 container is stopped by paperwork before it is stopped by trucking
For coconut shell charcoal the first thing that holds a box is the dangerous-goods document pack, not the truck. Terminals run Class 4.2 under a separate hazardous-cargo procedure — the Georgia Ports Authority under 33 CFR Part 126, 49 CFR Part 176 and the IMDG Code (Rule 34-061, effective 1 October 2025). It names classes barred from terminal storage; Class 4.2 is not among them, and it publishes no dwell limit, so treat any figure you are quoted as carrier- or terminal-specific. What you control is the paperwork arriving complete: we log production date, packing date and packing-day material temperature onto the Dangerous Goods Declaration for every shipment, and supply the weathering record and vanning survey on request — the same records behind the stuffing log, packing temperature and headspace records kept on loading day. DG slots are scarcer too, so plan against realistic transit times from Indonesia to your discharge port, not an optimistic one.
Free time is a tariff term, not an industry standard
There is no standard number of free days: free time is a tariff term published per country and varied by contract, so the only number that applies is the one on your booking. The carrier above counts it on working days — weekends included when the gate is open — then bills calendar days once it expires, and DG cargo frequently gets less. Any "typical" figure quoted elsewhere is someone's average. If a box is already stuck, message the export desk on WhatsApp and we will send the origin-side records.
The claim sequence, and the deadlines that end it
The periods below are quoted from the Hague-Visby Rules as enacted in the Schedule to the UK Carriage of Goods by Sea Act 1971 (fetched 1 August 2026). Which regime governs your shipment depends on your bill of lading — see the limits at the end.
Notice is due at or before removal — and a joint survey replaces it
- Apparent damage: notice at or before removal. Written notice to the carrier or its agent at the port of discharge "before or at the time of the removal of the goods into the custody of the person entitled to delivery" (Article III rule 6).
- Not apparent: within three days. The same rule gives three days from delivery.
- Missing notice does not kill the claim. Removal becomes prima facie evidence that the goods were delivered as the bill of lading described them. You can still sue; you have lost the easy proof.
- A joint survey removes the notice requirement. Notice "need not be given if the state of the goods has, at the time of their receipt, been the subject of joint survey or inspection", and both sides must give each other "all reasonable facilities … for inspecting and tallying".
- One year to sue. Carrier and ship are discharged unless suit is brought "within one year of their delivery or of the date when they should have been delivered", extendable only by agreement made after the cause of action arose.
Gating out fast to stop demurrage is what weakens the claim
Every step that moves the box faster removes a chance to record its condition while the carrier can still be held to it. That is a choice, not an optimisation.
| Situation | Gate out now? | Record first |
|---|---|---|
| Damage visible on opening | Not before notice is given | Written notice at or before removal; photographs; clause the delivery receipt |
| Damage suspected, not visible | Yes — the three-day window survives removal | Note the suspicion in writing on the day of delivery |
| Held by customs or a hazmat inspection | You cannot | The hold notice and its dates — see below |
| General average declared | Not until security is posted | Your insurer's guarantee and the adjuster's correspondence |
When a government hold pauses the clock, and when the carrier still bills you
A customs hold does not automatically stop the meter. The same US tariff assesses import demurrage where a regulatory hold causes the delay — CBP, FDA, USDA — yet provides that where a container-yard delivery is examined by customs outside the terminal, detention per diem does not apply during the examination. One hold, two answers. In the US there is a standard to argue against: the Commission "will consider the extent to which demurrage and detention are serving their intended primary purposes as financial incentives to promote freight fluidity", and on government inspections "may also consider any extenuating circumstances" (46 CFR §545.5, 2020). If you could not have moved the box, the charge is not doing its job. Elsewhere, your tariff and contract are the argument.
What a claim can actually recover, and why the bill of lading decides it
Liability is capped. Absent a declared value in the bill of lading it cannot exceed "666.67 units of account per package or unit" or "2 units of account per kilogramme", whichever is higher — the unit being the IMF special drawing right (Article IV rule 5). The trap is the next sub-rule: the packages "enumerated in the bill of lading … shall be deemed the number of packages" — enumerate nothing and the whole container is one package. Check the per-kilogramme limb against how many tonnes of each briquette shape a 20 ft or 40 ft actually holds. The carrier's defences include fire "unless caused by the actual fault or privity of the carrier", "inherent defect, quality or vice of the goods" and "insufficiency of packing" (rule 2) — and charcoal self-heats, so a fire claim meets all three.
So ask your underwriter, in writing, before shipping: does this policy respond to a self-heating loss on Class 4.2 cargo? Standard clauses exclude packing "insufficiency or unsuitability … carried out by the Assured or their employees or prior to the attachment of this insurance", and deem "packing" to include stowage in a container (Institute Cargo Clauses 1/1/09, clause 4.3). Whether that reaches you turns on who packed the box and when cover attached. We sell EXW as default and CFR on some orders, so the cover is yours to arrange: which incoterm carries the DG burden and the insurance with it.
Check the invoice before you pay it
Where the US rules apply, test the document before negotiating. After the DC Circuit's decision of 23 September 2025 the Commission states the court set aside "just one section of the Rule – 46 C.F.R. 541.4" — who may be invoiced — and that the rest remains fully applicable, including the requirement that an invoice "contain accurate and sufficient information" and the "30-day issuance deadline". Non-compliance with either "eliminates any obligation of the billed party to pay the applicable charge" (FMC, 20 November 2025). Check the issue date, then the content, then dispute.
What this playbook does not tell you
- This is trade documentation, not legal advice. Confirm the periods, limits and governing regime for your own shipment before acting on them.
- Which regime attaches is set by your bill of lading — the Hague-Visby Rules apply where the bill is issued in a contracting State, the carriage is from a port in one, or the contract so provides (Article X). Indonesia's own position is reported inconsistently by secondary sources and is not resolved here.
- No free-time figure here is a rule, and no Class 4.2 dwell limit is stated because none was found published.
- Reusing SP 978 records as claim evidence is an operational overlap we observe, not a rule of admissibility — no source establishes it as one.
- The US invoice and reasonableness rules above are jurisdiction-specific and do not travel.
Questions this page has not already answered
Who do I claim against if I booked through a freight forwarder?
Against whoever contracted to carry the goods — whoever issued the bill of lading you hold. Your own cargo insurer will usually pay first and pursue that carrier by subrogation. The written-notice deadline runs regardless of which party you ultimately pursue, so give notice first and settle the question of defendant afterwards.
Why is my container being held after a fire on someone else's cargo?
After a casualty the shipowner can declare general average, and your undamaged box is not released until security is posted: "Before cargo is released, the shipowner normally demands a general average bond from the cargo receiver and a general average guarantee from the cargo insurer" (Voyage Cover, marine-insurer guidance on the York-Antwerp Rules 2016 — current, though the 1994 Rules are still referenced in many bills of lading). Meanwhile the container accrues charges, which is why this belongs on a demurrage page at all.