Jebel Ali port storage charges: after the 10 free days

Jebel Ali is the busiest container port between Singapore and Rotterdam, and it is one of the two markets this site is written for. It is also one of the few large ports where the storage side of the arithmetic is a published document rather than a negotiation, which is why this page can state numbers that most port pages cannot.

The two clocks, and why the published one is the smaller problem

An import container at Jebel Ali is running two meters at once.

The terminal charges you for the ground the box occupies. Those are the port storage charges in the table below: they come out of DP World’s published tariff, and they are the same for everyone.

The carrier charges you demurrage for the box itself, and then detention once it leaves the gate. That is in your service contract, it differs between two importers moving identical boxes on the same vessel, and it is usually the larger number.

This page publishes the first and not the second, because the first is a document anyone can check and the second is yours. If you want to work out what an overstay actually cost you, the demurrage calculator takes the free days and the per-diem rates off your own contract.

The storage clock starts at discharge, not at clearance

Worth reading twice, because it is where the planning error usually is. The tariff commences free time for an import container from the date of discharge from the vessel. Not from when your declaration is filed, not from when the delivery order is released, not from when you first knew the vessel had berthed.

So every day spent waiting for a supplier to send a corrected invoice is a day off the ten, and the clock was already running before anyone told you there was a problem. Document packs routinely run about eight days late. Against ten free days, that is the whole allowance spent before the pack is even complete.

Two further rules in the tariff catch people out. Free time applies once per passage through the port, even if the party responsible changes hands mid-clearance. And once free time is exhausted, the container is charged on the total number of days it has been in the port, not on the days after the free period ended.

What large consignments get

The tariff grants extra free days by volume, on a single bill of lading or a single vessel-voyage: 30 containers or more earns 14 free days instead of 10, and 100 containers or more earns 20. Worth knowing before you split a consignment across two bills of lading for administrative convenience.

Hazardous cargo is a different regime entirely

IMDG class 5 gets no free time. The charge runs from day one at AED 500 per container per day, doubling to AED 1,000 after ten days. Class 8 gets three free days rather than ten. If you move oxidisers or corrosives, the ten-day figure at the top of this page is not yours, and a document delay that would be survivable on ordinary cargo is not.

What this page does not tell you

Your carrier’s free time. Nobody can publish that for you, and this site does not pretend otherwise: free time on the carrier side is set per service contract. Ask your line for the free days and the per-diem tiers in writing, then keep them somewhere the person chasing the documents can see them.

The tariff edition also matters. The rates above are the November 2023 edition of the DP World UAE Region Tariff Book. Tariffs are reissued; check the current edition through Dubai Trade before you plan against a number on this page.

Where the ten days actually go

Not in the terminal. They go in the week before the vessel arrives, while somebody is emailing a supplier for the certificate that has not come. The work that keeps a Jebel Ali box inside its free time is done at origin, on the document pack, and it is the job demurrage and detention software exists to do: counting backwards from the last free day and chasing whoever owes the missing paper.