Bonded Storage in Brazil: Where Import Costs Escalate

Every imported shipment arriving at a Brazilian port sits in a bonded warehouse until the Receita Federal, Brazil’s customs authority, releases it. While it sits, three charges run at once: terminal storage, carrier demurrage for container use inside the terminal, and carrier detention for container use outside the terminal after gate-out. Each charge has its own owner, its own calculation base, and its own free-time allowance. All three escalate with time. The longer the cargo stays, the more each extra day costs.

Freight forwarder ops staff who understand how these charges stack can keep a shipment’s costs under control instead of watching them eat the margin quoted to the client. The importer gets the bill at the end, but the person who decides how many days the process takes is the one managing it day to day.

Three charges run simultaneously on the same cargo

Terminal storage is charged by the port terminal or bonded facility holding the cargo. The terminal rents the yard or warehouse space, and the bill goes to the importer or whoever the terminal lists as consignee. At most terminals in Santos, Paranagua and Itajai, the rate is a percentage of the cargo’s CIF value, split into progressive tiers by dwell period. ANTAQ Resolution No. 72/2022 authorizes port facilities to provide this service and set their own price schedules.

Demurrage is charged by the shipping line for use of the laden container inside the terminal beyond the free time negotiated in the freight rate. The carrier grants a number of free days that varies by trade lane, volume commitment and contract. After that window closes, a daily rate per container kicks in, and it escalates in tiers too: the first days past free time cost less than later ones.

Detention is charged by the carrier after the container leaves the terminal. In an FCL import, the importer picks up the container, hauls it to a warehouse or factory, strips the cargo and returns the empty to the depot the carrier designates. Miss the return deadline and detention accrues per day of delay.

These three charges are independent of each other. Terminal storage keeps running while the container is in the yard, even if the carrier’s demurrage free time has not expired yet. Detention only starts once the container leaves the terminal, but the return window can be tight, especially on trade lanes with equipment shortages.

Terminal storage escalates in tiers based on CIF value

Most Brazilian port terminals charge import storage as a percentage of the cargo’s CIF value, applied per dwell period. The first period usually has a lower rate; later periods jump. The same cargo that cost 0.80% of CIF in the first five days might cost 1.50% in the second period and 3% in the third.

Each terminal publishes its own price schedule. DP World Santos, Santos Brasil, Ecoporto, Porto Itapoa and the terminals in Paranagua and Itajai post their schedules online, with rates per container, per ton and per period. Schedules change annually and sometimes mid-year. Cargo subject to inspection by regulatory agencies such as ANVISA (health surveillance), MAPA (agriculture) or Inmetro (standards) may face a 100% surcharge on storage at some terminals, because the agency’s involvement requires segregated areas and specific handling.

The storage clock starts when the cargo arrival notice (presenca de carga) is registered in Siscomex, Brazil’s foreign trade system. That date is when the terminal confirms the goods have arrived and are available for clearance. Everything after that date generates storage charges: weekends, holidays, and the days the cargo sits idle waiting for a document or a reply from customs.

Red channel, grey channel and missing documents add days that cost dearly

When the import declaration is filed and assigned to the green channel, release can happen the same day. Yellow channel means customs reviews documents first. Red channel means document review plus a physical inspection. Grey channel adds a special customs valuation procedure on top of everything else. Each channel adds days to dwell time, and those days feed into storage, demurrage and every other charge running while the container stays at the terminal.

The operator does not choose the channel. The Receita Federal’s system assigns it based on risk criteria, the importer’s profile and the declaration data. What the operator can control is how long the cargo stays in that channel. A fiscal requirement that takes three days to answer means three more days of storage, at whatever tier applies. An import license (LI) or LPCO not approved before the cargo arrives blocks the declaration filing entirely, and the cargo racks up costs at the terminal before clearance has even started.

Incomplete documentation is the most common cause of extended dwell time that a freight forwarder can actually prevent. A wrong tariff classification that triggers a requirement, a discrepancy between the commercial invoice and the declaration, a CE Mercante (Brazil’s electronic cargo manifest) with data that does not match the bill of lading: any of these errors can add days at the terminal. In the processes we have tracked with freight forwarders in Brazil, the shipments with the highest storage costs almost always had incomplete or incorrect documentation. The correction took longer than the inspection itself.

Stripping the container at the terminal stops demurrage before clearance

When clearance is running late and demurrage free time is about to expire, the importer can request container stripping at the terminal. The container is opened at the terminal’s CFS (Container Freight Station), the cargo is unloaded, and the empty container goes back to the carrier. Demurrage stops accruing because the carrier’s equipment has been returned.

Terminal storage continues, now on the loose cargo. Loose cargo may carry a different storage rate than a laden container, depending on the terminal. At some terminals, loose cargo storage is cheaper per day; at others, the handling cost of stripping only pays off when clearance will take several more days past the free time.

The math is simple: add up the stripping cost (handling, movement, segregation in the warehouse) and compare it with the demurrage that would accrue over the remaining days until release. If clearance is in the red channel and the physical inspection has not been scheduled yet, stripping almost always pays off. If the channel is yellow and the requirement is documentary, resolving the document may be faster than moving the cargo.

For LCL cargo that arrived consolidated, deconsolidation at the CFS already separates the cargo from the master container. The consolidator returns the container, and the importer is only responsible for loose cargo storage. Demurrage, if any, falls on the agent who operated the container, unless otherwise agreed.

Customs transit to an inland facility trades expensive storage for cheaper storage

Brazil’s Customs Transit Declaration (DTA) allows cargo to move from a bonded facility in the primary zone (the port) to one in the secondary zone: an EADI (inland customs station), a CLIA (logistics and industrial customs center) or a dry port. The cargo travels under customs control, accompanied by the DTA, and clearance happens at the destination facility.

The reason to do it is cost. Storage at secondary-zone facilities usually has lower rates than at port terminals because the cost per square meter away from the quay is lower. Free-time allowances at EADIs and CLIAs also tend to be more generous. For cargo with long clearance processes, like shipments requiring approval from multiple regulatory agencies or importers with a history of red-channel assignments, a DTA transfer can cut total storage costs by a wide margin.

The cost of a DTA includes inland trucking to the destination facility, the DTA issuance fee and the port terminal’s gate-out charge. If the cargo has already been stripped, it travels as loose cargo. If it is still in the container, the container travels along and demurrage keeps running until the cargo is stripped at the destination. The most efficient combination is to strip at the port terminal, return the empty container to the carrier and transfer the loose cargo by DTA to the secondary zone.

Whether a DTA makes sense depends on the trade lane and the expected clearance timeline. For a process that will clear in two or three days, it does not pay off: the trucking and handling costs exceed the storage savings. For a process stuck in the red channel with a pending inspection and no scheduled date, a DTA to a nearby EADI can save thousands of reais.

What operations can do before the vessel arrives

Storage cost is mostly decided by what happened before the cargo arrived. Every document that can be prepared, checked and submitted before the vessel berths shortens dwell time at the terminal.

The import license (LI) or LPCO, when required, must be approved before the import declaration can be filed. A freight forwarder that tracks license approvals and nudges the importer when the deadline is tight keeps cargo from sitting at the terminal waiting for a license that could have been requested weeks earlier.

The CE Mercante must be registered with correct information. A correction after the cargo arrives delays the declaration filing and, in turn, delays everything that follows. The same goes for tariff classification: a wrong NCM code can trigger a requirement, a different channel than expected and extra days of dwell time.

With the DUIMP (Brazil’s new unified import declaration), part of the clearance process can start early. The DUIMP can be filed before the vessel arrives, and regulatory agency review can be completed while the cargo is still in transit. As of September 2026, Brazil’s Portal Unico Siscomex already supports this workflow for a growing share of operations, depending on the cargo type and the agency involved. Cargo that arrives with the DUIMP already filed and regulatory review completed can be assigned to the green channel and released on the same day the cargo arrival is confirmed, bringing storage down to the minimum.

Terminal choice matters too. Terminals at the same port have different storage schedules, different free-time allowances and different capacity for inspections and clearance. An operator who knows each terminal’s rates and timelines and factors that into the booking decision is already cutting storage costs before the cargo leaves the origin.

How Tier2 Cargo tracks days and cost per container

To manage all of this, the operator needs to know, at any moment, how many days each container has been at the terminal, how much free time is left and what the accumulated storage and demurrage cost is. In Tier2 Cargo, 13 operational milestones per shipment record each stage, from vessel arrival to cargo delivery. Free-time tracking per container and demurrage and detention calculations with tiered rates follow costs from the quote through to settlement.

When a business partner accesses Tier2 Portal, they see the free-time countdown per container and released documents without calling the operations team. When documentation arrives by email or through the portal, Autodocs classifies and extracts fields before anyone opens the file, closing the gap between document arrival and system entry.

See how it works or get in touch.

One thing worth doing: pull the storage schedule from the three terminals you use most and compare the tiers. If the second tier costs twice the first and your processes regularly spill past the first period, the problem is probably upstream of the cargo’s arrival. Documentation that arrives late, a license that was not requested in time, or data that will need correction.