Detention Fees: Rates, Rules, and How to Actually Get Paid

Updated 2026-08-10

Detention is the money a carrier charges when a truck is held at a shipper or receiver beyond the agreed free time — typically an hourly rate that starts after one to two hours and is capped per day.

That is the definition. The useful part is that charging it and collecting it are different problems. In ATRI’s 2023 data, 94.5% of fleets charge detention fees, but they are paid on fewer than 50% of those invoices. Detention is not mostly a pricing problem. It is a documentation problem.

How common detention actually is

Source: ATRI, September 2024.

Two of those rows should change how you quote. Reefer detention at 56.2% of stops means a reefer quote built on dry-van dwell assumptions is a quote you will lose money on — see how each mode gets quoted. And 42.5% for spot-market fleets means the carrier you cover a hot load with tonight is the carrier most exposed to it.

Why an hour of detention costs more than the hourly rate

A driver’s day is governed by 49 CFR 395.3: a driver “may not drive after a period of 14 consecutive hours after coming on-duty following 10 consecutive hours off-duty,” and within that window may drive “a total of 11 hours.” The 14-hour window does not pause while a truck sits at a dock.

So two hours at a receiver does not cost two hours. It costs two hours of the 14, which can cost the next 400 miles, which can cost tomorrow’s load. That is why a $40/hour detention rate rarely makes a carrier whole, and why carriers who get burned twice stop taking your freight — a real cost that never shows up on the detention line.

The safety side is documented too. DOT’s Office of Inspector General found that “a 15-minute increase in average dwell time… increases the average expected crash rate by 6.2 percent”, and estimated detention reduces annual earnings for for-hire truckload drivers by $1.1 billion to $1.3 billion, and truckload carrier net income by $250.6 million to $302.9 million a year.

What detention costs the carrier, in numbers you can defend

There is no published national dataset of detention rates — rates are contract terms, not regulated figures, and anyone quoting you a single “industry standard” number is quoting a blog. What is published is the cost of running the truck: ATRI puts the industry-average cost to operate a truck in 2025 at $2.336 per mile, and $1.854 per mile excluding fuel (ATRI, July 2026).

Use that to sanity-check a detention rate instead of guessing. A truck that would otherwise be covering ground at, say, 50 miles in an hour of driving is a truck earning against $2.336/mile of cost. An hourly detention rate far below that range is not compensation; it is a discount the carrier is funding.

Our estimate, method stated: the per-mile figure is ATRI’s; the miles-per-hour and utilization assumptions are yours. We publish the arithmetic rather than a fake benchmark — see methodology.

The evidence chain that gets detention paid

Fewer than half of detention invoices get paid because most arrive without proof that survives a second look. This is the chain, in the order it breaks:

1. The rate confirmation defined it before dispatch. Free time per stop, hourly rate, daily cap, and what proof is required. If the rate confirmation says “detention as per policy,” there is nothing to enforce.
2. The driver notified before free time expired. A message timestamped at hour 1:45 is evidence. A claim filed three days later is a story.
3. In and out times are documented on the signed BOL — written by the facility, not by the driver, wherever the facility will do it.
4. A second, independent time source exists: ELD, GPS ping, gate-in/gate-out record, or the tracking link the broker was already using.
5. The invoice is submitted inside the contractual window with the BOL, the rate con, and the time evidence in one packet.
6. The broker passed the charge to the shipper under its own contract terms. A broker who never contracted the right to bill detention through is a broker paying detention out of margin.

Step 6 is where brokers quietly lose money. If your customer contract has no detention pass-through and your rate cons promise detention to carriers, you have written yourself a liability.

A detention clause that holds up

Drop-in language for the accessorial block of a rate con. Fill the brackets to your lane and customer terms.

DETENTION
Free time: [2] hours per stop, beginning at the scheduled appointment time or
  at arrival, whichever is later.
Rate: $[##] per hour thereafter, billed in [15]-minute increments,
  capped at $[###] per 24 hours.
Notice: carrier must notify broker in writing before free time expires.
  Claims first raised after departure are not payable.
Proof: in and out times recorded on the signed BOL by the facility, OR
  gate/ELD/GPS records supplied with the invoice.
Filing: submit with the invoice packet within [15] days of delivery.

Three deliberate choices in that block: free time starts at the appointment or arrival, whichever is later (an early truck does not start your clock); notice must come before free time expires (which is what makes the charge verifiable while the truck is still there); and proof is named, so nobody argues about what counts.

FAQ

How much is detention per hour? There is no regulated or published national rate. It is whatever your rate confirmation says, and it varies by mode, lane, and customer. Anyone citing a single national number is citing a blog, not a dataset. What you can anchor to is cost: ATRI’s industry-average operating cost was $2.336 per mile in 2025, and a detention rate that ignores that number will be rejected by good carriers.

Who pays detention: the broker or the shipper? The broker owes the carrier whatever the rate confirmation promises, regardless of whether the shipper reimburses. Whether the shipper pays the broker depends on the broker’s own customer contract. Those two documents must agree, or the gap is broker margin.

Why do so many detention invoices go unpaid? Because the proof is missing or late. ATRI’s 2023 data shows 94.5% of fleets charge detention, and get paid on fewer than half of those invoices. The evidence chain above is the difference.

Is detention the same as demurrage? No. In containerized and port freight the terms have specific meanings and, on the ocean side, federal billing rules — see drayage. Truckload detention is a contract term between broker and carrier.

Related

• What is a rate confirmation (with template)
• TONU: what’s owed when the load cancels
• Lumper fees: who pays and how reimbursement works
• Drayage: how container moves are priced