On January 24th, 2023, Long Beach and Los Angeles will phase out the billing practices of a “Container Dwell Fee” that was supposed to be billed to the ocean lines after nine days of dwelling at the port. The container dwell fee was a new fee implemented by the Biden-Harris administration to inspire cargo owners and logistics providers to remove the container from the dock. The Container Dwell Fee was actually never implemented because the backlog was able to be cleaned quickly after the threat of the fee was put in place.
The key fact to understand is that this fee has nothing to do with Demurrage and Storage. Demurrage and Storage will continue to be charged based on the time the container sits at the port beyond its free time.
The Port of Long Beach has a post about this issue on December 16th, 2022. (Source).
