Are Detention and Demurrage Charges Recoverable? What Shippers Need to Know About Post Payment Audits (Recoveries?)

There’s a line item on your ocean freight invoices that most AP teams gloss over, your TMS flags as routine, and your finance department treats as an unavoidable cost of doing business. It reads something like “D&D — Container Fees.” And it may be quietly draining your bottom line every single month.

Detention and demurrage charges, the fees assessed when cargo lingers at a terminal beyond its free time, or when a container is held outside the port beyond its allowed return window have long been a source of frustration for shippers. What’s changed is the scale. What hasn’t changed is how few companies are doing anything about the errors buried inside these charges.

The Landscape Has Shifted. The Billing Hasn’t Kept Up.

Port congestion hasn’t disappeared; it’s simply normalized unevenly. Disruptions to Red Sea and Suez Canal traffic have rerouted vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, adding 10-14 days to voyages and compressing arrival windows at already-strained transshipment hubs like Singapore, Rotterdam, and Fujairah. At U.S. ports, the picture is equally acute: the top five most expensive ports globally for D&D fees on cargo containers are all in the United States, where charges have climbed steadily and show no signs of reversing. [alkagesta.com] [Inbound Lo…Case Study | PDF]

The numbers are stark. Between 2020 and 2022, nine of the largest ocean carriers serving U.S. trades charged a combined $8.9 billion in D&D fees, collecting roughly $6.9 billion of that total. Average global demurrage and detention charges rose approximately 8% year-on-year in 2025, driven by reduced free-time allowances, misaligned back-to-back contracts, and persistent infrastructure bottlenecks. Shipping delay charges overall rose 20–25% from 2022 to 2025. [federalregister.gov] [alkagesta.com] [freightamigo.com]

What this means for shippers: the dollar exposure tied to D&D is larger than it has ever been. And much of what’s being paid shouldn’t be paid at all.

Why AP and TMS Systems Miss It

Accounts payable platforms and transportation management systems are built for throughput. They match invoices to purchase orders, validate freight charges against contracted rates, and route approvals efficiently. What they are not built to do is challenge the accuracy of accessorial charges like detention and demurrage at the line-item level.

The problem isn’t a lack of technology. It’s a lack of depth. D&D billing is notoriously complex: free-time windows vary by carrier, terminal, alliance, and equipment type. The clock starts at different points depending on whether you’re at a U.S. port (when the container is made available) versus a Canadian port (when it’s offloaded). In Latin America and Oceania, the terms themselves are often reversed entirely. Meanwhile, combined D&D charges where both detention and demurrage clocks run simultaneously, can stack daily costs to levels that dwarf the original freight invoice. [chrobinson.com]

Your TMS sees the charge. It doesn’t ask whether the timestamp was accurate, whether the carrier’s own performance caused or contributed to the delay, or whether the invoice even meets the minimum information requirements that would legally obligate you to pay. That’s the gap. And it’s where recoverable money disappears.

The Post Payment Audit Advantage: What Gets Caught After the Fact

The Federal Maritime Commission’s Final Rule under the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 2022 (OSRA 2022), effective May 28, 2024, was a watershed moment for shipper rights. The rule established that carriers and marine terminal operators must include specific identifying information on every D&D invoice—container numbers, bill of lading numbers, free-time start and end dates, applicable tariff rules, daily rates, and critically, a certification that the carrier’s own performance did not cause or contribute to the charges. Failure to include any of this information eliminates the billed party’s obligation to pay. [fmc.gov] [bistatemot…rriers.com]

Here’s what that means in practice: invoices that don’t comply are legally non-payable. Yet many shippers, without a systematic post payment recovery process, are paying them anyway. Simply because no one in their organization has the bandwidth or the expertise to scrutinize every D&D invoice against the regulatory standard.

This is precisely where transportation post payment audit validation delivers results that no internal team or automated system can replicate. A rigorous post payment audit examines:

• Timestamp accuracy — Was the free-time clock started correctly? Was the container actually made available on the date listed? Carriers have been known to use erroneous availability dates, triggering charges before a shipper could legally act.
• Carrier-caused delays — If port congestion, equipment unavailability, or carrier operational failures contributed to the delay, those charges are disputable under OSRA 2022. Without documentation and expertise, most shippers never file the claim.
• Tariff rule alignment — Is the daily rate on the invoice consistent with the applicable tariff or contracted agreement? Rate discrepancies and misapplied tier escalations are common overbilling patterns.
• Terminal fee structures — Some terminals assess demurrage and storage charges separately but bundle them on a single invoice. Without line-item validation, shippers overpay for costs that were already embedded elsewhere in their freight bill.
• Invoice compliance gaps — Does the invoice contain all FMC-required minimum information? If not, under 46 CFR Part 541, the charge is unenforceable. [ecfr.gov]

Trans Audit Finds What Others Miss

Trans Audit’s Subject Matter Modal Experts (SMMEs) have been uncovering recoverable D&D charges long before the FMC’s Final Rule put regulatory teeth behind the effort. As the world’s largest and most successful global transportation post payment recovery specialist, with nearly 50 years of experience, Trans Audit scrutinizes individual bills to uncover payment discrepancies, misapplied rates, accessorial errors, detention, demurrage, and more, across every mode of global transportation. [LTO – Holi…it article | PDF]

The results speak for themselves. In a high-profile partnership with a Fortune 200 multinational automotive manufacturer, Trans Audit filed claims exceeding $4 million within the first year, recovering over $3 million. Recoveries stemmed primarily from errors related to detention, revised billings, payment discrepancies, rate issues, and incorrect accessorial charges. [LTO Trans…f the Year | PDF]

Trans Audit’s proprietary multi-pass audit process is specifically designed to surface the issues that TMS platforms and AP teams overlook. By conducting a holistic review of all payment points, including carrier web access, shipment and payment data, and contract terms, Trans Audit validates not just whether a charge was paid, but whether it was owed. Where overpayments and overbillings are identified, Trans Audit formulates comprehensive refund claims, and its dedicated Carrier Relations Managers submit and track every claim through to resolution. [Who, What, How | PDF]

The entire process operates on a contingency basis: no recovery, no fee. There are no upfront costs, no onboarding charges, and no ongoing data processing fees. The risk is zero. The reward is real money returned.

Stop Treating D&D as a Fixed Cost

The single most expensive assumption a shipper can make right now is that detention and demurrage charges are unavoidable. Some charges are legitimate. Many are not. The difference between the two is buried in timestamps, tariff schedules, carrier certifications, and terminal fee structures. These details never surface in a standard AP workflow.

In today’s environment, where port congestion normalizes unevenly, carrier billing complexity continues to grow, and regulatory protections exist but must be actively exercised—the shippers who recover their money are the ones who look for it.

Trans Audit looks for it. Every invoice. Every mode. Every dollar.

Ready to find out what’s hiding in your D&D charges? Contact Trans Audit to start your post-payment audit today. peaceofmind@transaudit.com