Long Beach, California · West Coast
Port of Long Beach container demurrage & detention dispute guide
Six container terminals, mixed appointment systems and the shared San Pedro Bay chassis and PierPass rules make Long Beach a dense source of disputable D&D.
- Authority
- Port of Long Beach (City of Long Beach Harbor Department)
- Volume
- 9.88 million TEU in calendar 2025, a record (Port of Long Beach)
- Container terminals
- 6
The port at a glance
Long Beach is the second half of the San Pedro Bay complex and handled nearly half of the bay's container volume in 2025. Six container terminals operate here, from the highly automated Long Beach Container Terminal at Middle Harbor to the Matson-dedicated terminal on Pier C. Most Southern California importers touch both Long Beach and Los Angeles in the same month, often on the same carrier, which means two sets of terminal rules and appointment portals feed into one D&D invoice stream.
Demurrage and per diem exposure at Long Beach follows the same pattern as its neighbor: import containers that are reported available but cannot be booked out before LFD, and empties that cannot be returned because the terminal is not receiving that carrier's equipment. Terminal-specific appointment systems make the problem worse for small drayage fleets, which may hold logins for some terminals but not others. When a trucker cannot see open slots, the importer rarely knows why the box sat.
What importers get wrong here is assuming the terminal and the carrier agree on dates. They frequently do not. The terminal record of discharge, hold release and gate out is the system of record for what physically happened; the carrier's invoice is a downstream calculation. Disputes succeed when the billed party lays the two side by side, day by day, and shows the gap.
Container terminals
Long Beach Container Terminal (Pier E, Middle Harbor)
LBCT LLC · Automated terminal with its own trucker portal
Total Terminals International (Pier T)
Total Terminals International
International Transportation Service (Pier G)
International Transportation Service
SSA Pier A
SSA Marine
Terminal C60 (Pier C)
SSA Terminals · Dedicated to Matson's Hawaii, Guam and China services
Pacific Container Terminal (Pier J)
SSA Marine
Appointments & empty returns
- Truck appointments are required under PierPass 2.0 and are booked terminal by terminal, through eModal at several terminals and through terminal-run portals such as LBCT's trucker portal at others.
- The Port of Long Beach Supply Chain Information Highway, built with UNCOMN, offers a public container track-and-trace tool on polb.com covering the port's six container terminals.
- Empty return acceptance is published daily by each terminal and carrier rather than through a single port-wide booking system.
Chassis
Long Beach draws on the same San Pedro Bay chassis market as Los Angeles, supplied by pools from DCLI, TRAC Intermodal and Flexi-Van after Flexi-Van's legacy chassis left the Pool of Pools on May 31, 2025.
Where D&D builds up at Long Beach.
Terminal-by-terminal appointment portals
Different terminals use different appointment platforms, so a trucker's visibility depends on which accounts it holds. Lack of open slots on the right portal before LFD is common and provable with screenshots.
Empty return restrictions
As at Los Angeles, terminals post daily lists of which carriers' empties they will receive by size. A return refused at the gate, followed by a dual transaction that also fails, creates per diem days the trucker could not avoid.
Automated terminal exceptions
Automated yards can produce trouble tickets at the gate (mismatched bookings, unreadable seals, chassis issues) that send trucks away without the box. Each rejected transaction ticket is evidence of a failed attempt.
PierPass TMF holds
Loaded truck moves carry the Traffic Mitigation Fee. A TMF payment delay or hold can block release; confirm whose action delayed it before accepting billed demurrage days.
Shared chassis supply
Long Beach shares the San Pedro Bay chassis market with Los Angeles. As the Pool of Pools unwinds, a trucker without access to the right provider's pool can face delays that hold up pickups.
Closures and shift cancellations
Holiday closures, wind closures and labor-related shift cancellations suspend gate moves. Billed days that overlap these closures should be flagged automatically.
Free time and disputes at Long Beach
Free time at Long Beach is not set by the port. Carrier demurrage and detention free time comes from the ocean carrier's tariff or your service contract, and terminal storage comes from the MTO's published schedule. An invoice that does not state the allowed free time, its start and end dates, the container availability date and the specific tariff rule, schedule or contract section is missing required § 541.6 elements, and under § 541.5 a billed party has no obligation to pay a charge on an invoice that omits required information.
For demurrage, line up the invoice's availability date against the terminal record. Holds released late, containers marked unavailable for yard reasons and days with no import appointments are the core of an incentive-principle dispute under 46 CFR § 545.5. For detention and per diem, compare each billed day with that day's empty return notice for the carrier and size.
The billing party has 30 calendar days from the date the charge was last incurred to issue the invoice (§ 541.7), and you have at least 30 calendar days from issuance to request relief (§ 541.8). The billing party must then resolve your request within 30 days of receipt unless both sides agree otherwise. ATAHSKIA tracks both deadlines per invoice, and Milestone & Gate Tracking reconciles terminal events against billed days so the relief request goes out with the evidence already attached.
Long Beach D&D FAQ
Do Long Beach terminals all use the same appointment system?
No. Appointments are required at all six terminals, but they are booked terminal by terminal, through eModal at several terminals and through terminal-run portals at others. Evidence must come from the portal of the terminal actually holding the box.
How can I check a container's status at Long Beach independently of the carrier?
The port's Supply Chain Information Highway includes a public track-and-trace tool on polb.com covering its six container terminals, and each terminal publishes its own container inquiry. Save those records for any day you plan to dispute.
What if my empty was refused at a Long Beach terminal?
Keep the gate rejection ticket and the terminal's empty return notice for that day. Per diem charged for days when the designated terminal would not accept the container is a strong candidate for a relief request under the incentive principle.
Audit your Long Beach invoices.
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