Dwell Fees Combat Congestion and Excess at Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach

Date of Publication: December 2, 2021

To combat congestion and container excess, the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach recently announced that cargoes dwelling in the port terminals for extended periods of time will be subjected to dwell fees. This change was originally planned to go into effect in November, but the start date for the dwell fees was pushed back and will now go into effect on December 6, 2021.

The new dwell fees are meant to encourage movement within the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. They also penalize cargoes that remain in the port’s terminals for excessive amounts of time, an issue that has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The dwell fees will affect:

• Cargoes designated for movement by truck that remain on the terminal for more than eight days after discharge
• Cargoes designated for movement by rail that remain on the terminal for more than five days after discharge

For cargoes that remain on the terminal past the allowed period of time, there will be a dwell fee of $100 per container. The fee will then increase in increments of $100 per container per day until the cargo is moved from the port terminal. For example, cargo designated for movement by truck that remains on the port terminal for 12 days will see a daily container dwell fee of $400 per day per container, along with a cumulative charge per container of $1,000.

According to the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, collected dwells fees will be reinvested into programs that will promote efficiency, accelerate cargo velocity, and address future congestion issues within the ports.

To avoid dwell fees and congestion-related delays, we encourage our import customers with shipments inbound to the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to confirm preclearance and payments, plus scheduling trucking well in advance.

This content is intended for informational purposes. Due to the generality of this content, the provided information may not be applicable in all situations. We encourage the reader to review the most up-date-regulations directly with the U.S. government’s sources the dwell fees for the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.