Newark and Elizabeth, New Jersey; Staten Island and Brooklyn, New York · East Coast
Port of New York and New Jersey container demurrage & detention dispute guide
The largest East Coast gateway: six container terminals across two states, ExpressRail on-dock rail and a dense chassis market that turns small gate delays into large D&D bills.
- Authority
- Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
- Volume
- 5,955,798 loaded TEU in calendar 2025, up 2.8% on 2024 (Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, February 2026 release)
- Container terminals
- 6
The port at a glance
The Port of New York and New Jersey is the busiest container gateway on the East Coast and serves the most densely populated consumer market in the United States. Six container terminals operate across the harbor: three in the Port Newark and Elizabeth complex, GCT Bayonne on the Port Jersey peninsula, GCT New York at Howland Hook on Staten Island and Red Hook in Brooklyn. Import cargo dominates, much of it destined for distribution centers in central New Jersey, the Lehigh Valley and the Hudson Valley within a single drayage shift, with ExpressRail moving intermodal boxes inland to the Midwest and Canada.
Detention and demurrage exposure in New York and New Jersey tends to come from compression. Large vessel calls land thousands of import containers in a short window, and the importer has to secure an appointment, a chassis, a driver and a warehouse dock door inside free time. When any one of those is missing (no appointment slots for the day a box became available, a chassis shortage at the terminal, a winter storm that closes gates), demurrage keeps running on the terminal side while per diem starts on the carrier side once the container leaves. Empty return is the second pressure point: carriers and terminals restrict which empties a terminal will accept on a given day, and a driver who cannot return an empty to the designated location runs up detention that the cargo owner never had the power to stop.
The most common mistake importers make here is paying the invoice because the dates look plausible. A demurrage invoice that starts free time on the vessel discharge date rather than the date the container was actually available for pickup, or that bills days when the terminal published no appointments, is exactly the situation 46 CFR § 545.5 addresses. The second mistake is treating the terminal and the carrier as one billing party. Each issues its own invoice, each must carry the 20 elements of § 541.6, and each starts its own 30-day clocks.
Container terminals
APM Terminals Elizabeth
APM Terminals · Elizabeth, NJ; served by ExpressRail
Maher Terminals
Maher Terminals · Elizabeth, NJ; served by ExpressRail
Port Newark Container Terminal (PNCT)
Port Newark Container Terminal · Port Newark, NJ
GCT Bayonne
GCT USA · Port Jersey, Bayonne and Jersey City, NJ; first East Coast terminal to adopt truck appointments
GCT New York
GCT USA · Howland Hook, Staten Island, NY; on-dock rail via ExpressRail Staten Island
Red Hook Container Terminal
Red Hook Container Terminal · Brooklyn, NY, with a barge link to a Port Newark facility
Appointments & empty returns
- PortTruckPass, the Port Authority's web-based port community system, carries the Terminal Information Portal System (TIPS) used for container availability and appointment information across the six container terminals.
- Each terminal publishes its own appointment rules, slot windows and empty-return instructions on its own portal (APM Terminals, Maher, PNCT, GCT USA and Red Hook), and those terminal-level notices are the primary evidence of whether a pickup or return was possible on a given day.
- Container status, holds and appointment bookings are also commonly managed through eModal's community portal, which ATAHSKIA connects to via eModal's API (see /product/integrations/emodal).
Chassis
Chassis at the port come from competing provider pools rather than one gray pool, including TRAC Intermodal's Metro Pool and the Flexi-Van and DCLI pool-of-pools arrangement launched in 2019.
Where D&D builds up at New York / New Jersey.
Appointment scarcity after large vessel calls
When an ultra-large vessel discharges, import availability spikes faster than appointment inventory. A container that is technically available but has no bookable slot for two or three days is still accruing demurrage. Screenshots of the terminal's appointment calendar are the most persuasive evidence you can collect.
Empty return restrictions
Terminals and carriers publish daily lists of which empties each terminal will accept by carrier and size type. When the designated return terminal refuses an empty, the driver either dry-runs or holds the container on a chassis, and detention keeps running. Save the daily empty-return notice and the dry-run record.
Chassis supply across competing pools
Chassis in the harbor come from competing provider pools rather than a single gray pool, so a driver may find no chassis from the provider the motor carrier is contracted with even when others are on the terminal. Chassis unavailability that blocks pickup is relevant under the incentive principle.
Winter weather and wind closures
Nor'easters, snowstorms and high-wind crane stoppages close or slow gates several times most winters. Terminal closure notices and Port Authority advisories establish days on which no one could move cargo.
Labor events
The coastwide ILA work stoppage of October 1 to 3, 2024 shut every container terminal in the harbor. Days billed during a stoppage, and the backlog days that followed, should be checked against each terminal's reopening notice.
Rail dwell on ExpressRail moves
Boxes moving inland under a through bill of lading can sit at the terminal waiting for rail capacity. If the carrier controls the rail move, demurrage billed to the cargo owner for that dwell deserves a hard look.
Free time and disputes at New York / New Jersey
Free time for import containers in New York and New Jersey is set in three places: the ocean carrier's tariff or your service contract (for carrier-billed demurrage and detention), and the marine terminal operator's schedule (for terminal-billed storage). There is no single port-wide free-time number, so the first audit step is matching each invoice to the rule it cites. Under § 541.6 the invoice must name that rule (tariff and rule number, terminal schedule, or service contract number and section), the free time allowed in days, the start and end of free time, the container availability date and the specific dates charged. Missing any of those is a deficiency that, under § 541.5, eliminates any obligation to pay.
The second step is checking the dates against what actually happened at the terminal. A free-time start that precedes the terminal's availability timestamp, or chargeable days that fall on gate closure dates, are the date errors to look for first in this harbor. Detention invoices should be tested against the empty-return notices for each day the container was out: if the return terminal was not accepting that carrier's empties, the billed days did not serve the incentive purpose described in 46 CFR § 545.5.
Timing matters. The billing party must issue the invoice within 30 calendar days of the date the charge was last incurred (§ 541.7), and you have at least 30 calendar days from issuance to request mitigation, refund or waiver (§ 541.8). Because a single import can produce a terminal invoice, a carrier demurrage invoice and a carrier detention invoice on different dates, ATAHSKIA tracks each clock separately and files the relief request inside the shortest one. If a billing party does not resolve a request within 30 days, the billed party can submit a charge complaint under 46 U.S.C. § 41310, and ATAHSKIA compiles that dossier for the billed party to submit.
New York / New Jersey D&D FAQ
Who sets free time for import containers at the Port of New York and New Jersey?
There is no port-wide free-time rule. Carrier demurrage and detention free time comes from the ocean carrier's tariff or your service contract, and terminal storage free time comes from the terminal operator's schedule. Each invoice must cite the rule it relies on under 46 CFR § 541.6.
Can I dispute demurrage for days when no appointments were available?
Yes. Days when the terminal published no bookable appointments are days the cargo owner could not retrieve the container. Capture the appointment calendar and cite the incentive principle in 46 CFR § 545.5 in your relief request, filed within the § 541.8 window.
Does the October 2024 ILA strike affect D&D billed for those days?
Every container terminal in the harbor was closed from October 1 to 3, 2024. Charges for those days, and for the congestion days immediately after, should be reviewed against each terminal's closure and reopening notices before payment.
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