Last free day: how to stop paying for it

October 27, 2026,7 min read

The last free day (LFD) is the last day an import container can sit at the terminal without a storage charge. Pick it up after that day and the terminal or the ocean carrier bills demurrage for every extra day, usually at a rate that climbs the longer the box sits. Demurrage usually bills to the cargo owner and per diem to the trucker, and demurrage can land on the carrier too when the delay is the carrier's or the contract passes it through. This guide covers how the LFD is set, the three charges that start around it, and a daily routine that keeps containers off the bill.

How the last free day is set

Free time usually starts when the container is discharged from the vessel or made available. The number of free days comes from the terminal's tariff or the ocean carrier's terms for that customer, so two boxes off the same ship can carry different LFDs. You find it on the terminal's container availability lookup, on the arrival notice, or from your customer.

Three things catch carriers out:

The LFD moves. A late vessel, a terminal extension or a corrected notice changes it. Check it again the day before you plan the pickup, not only when the load is booked.
Holds do not always stop the clock. A customs, freight or line hold can block the pickup while free days keep counting. Ask the terminal how it treats holds before you assume the LFD waits.
Available is not the same as pickable. If the terminal needs an appointment, the real deadline is the last appointment slot you can get on or before the LFD.

The three clocks: demurrage, per diem and chassis per diem

Demurrage runs inside the terminal, per diem runs on the ocean carrier's container outside it, and chassis per diem runs on the chassis. Contracts name them loosely; where the equipment sits decides which clock is running.

Demurrage runs while the loaded container is still inside the terminal past its LFD. It stops when the container gates out.
Per diem (some contracts call it detention) runs while the ocean carrier's container is outside the terminal past the line's free days. It stops when the empty is returned and accepted.
Chassis per diem runs on the chassis under the box, billed by the chassis provider for every day past any free days your agreement gives (some pools bill from the first day), until the chassis goes back.

Who ends up paying depends on your contracts. A charge billed to the carrier that the rate confirmation does not let you pass through comes out of the load's margin, which is why the LFD is the date dispatch watches hardest.

A daily routine that keeps you off the bill

Ten minutes every morning, in this order:

List every import container by LFD, soonest first. Today and tomorrow at the top, then the rest of the week.
Check availability and holds for anything inside your warning window. A box on hold needs a phone call today, not on its last day.
Book the pickup appointment for each of those containers before the slots run out.
Pre-pull when delivery is after the LFD. If the customer cannot receive until next week, pulling the container to your yard trades a yard and a second move against the demurrage. Price both.
Plan the empty return with the pickup. The demurrage clock stops at the gate, and the per diem free days start counting there. Know where and when the empty goes back before the loaded box leaves.
Write the charge down when it happens. Put it on the load the same day, so it gets billed back where the contract allows, or at least counted against the lane.

Worked example

What a late pickup costs

Take a terminal that charges $100 a day for the first five days past the LFD and $200 a day after that. These are illustrative rates, not any terminal's tariff; check your own.

Picked up on the LFD: $0.
Three days late: 3 × $100 = $300.
Seven days late: 5 × $100 + 2 × $200 = $900, before any per diem or chassis days.

The escalation is why the last few days matter most, and why a missing LFD is a missing alarm: the countdown, the warning and the estimate all start from that one date. If the date is not confirmed when the load is booked, enter the best date you have and correct it when the terminal confirms.

How ActionTMS tracks the last free day

ActionTMS keeps the dates and the dollars for the daily routine on each load, on every plan:

An LFD on every container load, with countdown badges that start a set number of days out. The LFD Warning Window in Settings, Company takes 1 to 14 days (3 by default).
Morning warnings. Dispatchers and owners get a morning notification when a container's LFD is tomorrow, today or passed, and for port cutoffs today or tomorrow and overdue legs.
A check when dispatching. Dispatching an intermodal import's leg with no LFD set is refused, from the dispatch board or by the AI assistant, until the LFD is on the load.
Demurrage and chassis per diem in dollars. Set your daily demurrage rate once (with an optional higher rate after a set number of days) and default chassis free days and rate. Exposure then shows on the loads list and on each load's Financial Summary, and Add to costs turns an estimate into a cost item on the load.

With an AI seat, you can ask the AI assistant which containers are close to their last free day, in plain English, against your live loads. Without rates set, it reports day counts only and does not invent a dollar figure.

Still tracking LFDs in a spreadsheet column? Start with moving dispatch off a spreadsheet.