Demurrage charges: where the forwarder loses the client

Demurrage charges turn into disputes when the client first learns the day count from the invoice itself. Since August 2025, Ruling 521/2025 from ANTAQ, Brazil’s waterway transport regulator, allows demurrage to be charged only when the late return stems from the user’s own interest, choice, fault or business risk. The burden sits with whoever bills: show the dates, show the cause of the delay. On the sales side, every disputed invoice becomes a phone call, and those calls tend to land close to contract renewal.

Free time sold and free time bought are two different numbers

The quote sells the client a number of free days per container. The booking with the carrier carries a different number, negotiated by lane and by contract. The terminal counts storage on its own calendar, from discharge. That is three counts in three systems.

Free time sold: what is in the quote and in the client contract
Free time bought: what the carrier granted on the booking, per container
Terminal storage: a separate count, with its own tariff, from discharge

When the three match, the demurrage invoice reconciles with the quote and the client’s finance team checks it in minutes. When sold exceeds bought, the difference comes out of the shipment’s margin or lands on the client’s invoice, on a line the proposal left as “on request”. Under ANTAQ’s Normative Resolution 18/2017, free time on Brazilian imports counts from the day after the cargo arrives, and the demurrage rules and the number of free days must be made available to the consignee by booking confirmation. The rule applies to whoever writes the quote.

Why do demurrage charges turn into disputes?

The container is discharged, the carrier’s count starts, and the client hears nothing until the invoice. The invoice arrives as days times rate, without the three pieces of information the client’s finance team would use to check it:

the discharge date and the empty return date, which define the count
the free days sold in the quote
the carrier’s invoice, with the amount charged at origin

Without them, finance compares the invoice with the quote, finds a cost the proposal left open, and sends it back to the account executive to explain.

Most of the time the charge is justified. The client’s own trucker returns the empty late, clearance sits in the red channel, the carrier applies the second tier of its tariff. A legitimate charge without a breakdown still reaches the client looking exactly like an abusive one. In June 2025, Portogente documented a Brazilian importer billed R$ 1,652,035.20 in demurrage by an intermediary, at US$ 238 per day. The carrier’s daily rate was US$ 80, which would have come to R$ 478,181.60 on the same shipment. An importer who read that article checks every demurrage invoice with that case in mind.

What the sales team changes before the next invoice

Sell the free time you bought. The quote repeats the booking’s free days, per container, and includes the demurrage tariff by tier. The carrier’s daily rate in dollars appears in the proposal as a daily rate in dollars.
Show the count while it runs. The client sees the discharge date, the free days sold and the day the container starts costing money, per container, without having to ask for it. A notice on day five of seven gives the client two days to schedule the pickup.
Invoice with the basis. Every invoice carries the container number, discharge date, return date, days charged and rate by tier, with the carrier’s invoice attached. The client’s finance team checks it line by line and the invoice enters accounts payable without passing through sales.

Two things still need a person: the dispute over who delayed the empty return, and negotiating extra free days with the carrier for a client that ships every month. Both take less time when the count was already visible to the client.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is demurrage on imports?

Demurrage is the daily charge a carrier applies when a full container stays beyond free time without being returned empty. The rate is per day, per container, and usually rises in tiers as the days pass.

Who pays demurrage, the importer or the freight forwarder?

The contract of carriage assigns demurrage to the consignee, usually the importer. The freight forwarder typically intermediates the charge and is liable to the carrier when the bill of lading is in its name, so it passes the cost on with the carrier’s invoice as the basis.

When can demurrage be charged to the importer in Brazil?

Under ANTAQ Ruling 521/2025, demurrage may only be charged when the late return of the container stems from the user’s interest, choice, fault or business risk. If the overrun comes from a failure by the carrier, the nominated terminal or the depot, the charge does not apply.

How Tier2 Portal shows the free-time count to the business partner

The business partner logs into Tier2 Portal and sees, per container, the free-time count based on the free days the forwarder sold. The same portal holds the shipment milestones and the invoices, with the PDF and the link to the Brazilian tax invoice (NFS-e), read straight from Tier2 Cargo. The count on day five sits in the portal for the partner to read at any time. In Tier2 Cargo, demurrage is calculated by tier and the invoice goes out with the container, the days and the rate. The portal runs on the forwarder’s own domain, under the forwarder’s brand.

See Tier2 Portal or talk to us.

Keep the free-time count visible to the client from discharge onward. Demurrage charges that arrive after that take minutes to check, and contract renewal starts with no open dispute.