How to dispute a COSCO Shipping demurrage invoice
Most demurrage invoices are arithmetically correct and still wrong, because the clock was started on the wrong event or kept running through days the carrier controlled. Here is the order of operations that gets a COSCO Shipping charge reduced or reversed — and the paperwork you need before you write the first email.
The COSCO Shipping clock
- Demurrage starts
- Discharge.
- Detention starts
- Gate-out.
- Typical free time
- ~4 days demurrage, ~4 days detention on dry equipment (e.g. 3 demurrage days on a 40' dry import at Los Angeles / Long Beach).
- Filed tariff
- COSCO e-business tariff lookup
The COSCO Shipping trap: COSCO and OOCL are separately filed despite the common group — check which brand issued the bill of lading.
Step 1 — Demand the breakdown
Do not argue the total. In writing, ask COSCO Shipping for the day-by-day calculation: the event that started the clock and its timestamp, the free days applied and why, the tier rates used for each band, and the filed tariff reference in force on the discharge date. In the United States, the FMC demurrage and detention billing rule requires an invoice to carry specified information — including the basis of the charge, the applicable free time and how to dispute it. An invoice that omits it is contestable on that ground alone, and asking for the breakdown creates the paper trail.
Step 2 — Rebuild the clock
Recalculate it yourself from the discharge or gate-out event, applying the free days that the filed tariff grants for your equipment type and direction. Weekends, public holidays and terminal closure days are where carrier systems and reality diverge most often. The COSCO Shipping free-time matrix gives the port-by-port defaults, and the demurrage calculator prints a day-by-day table you can attach to the dispute.
Step 3 — Assemble the evidence pack
Five documents win almost every reversal. Collect them before you file; a dispute reopened later for missing proof usually dies on the time bar.
Gate-in / gate-out timestamps
The terminal EDI or trucker gate ticket showing the exact moment the box left and returned. This is what decides whether demurrage or detention applies, and the carrier bills from its own record — which is not always the same one.
Refused or unavailable appointments
Screenshots of the terminal appointment system showing no slots, or slots released outside your free time. A charge that accrued while the terminal made pickup impossible does not serve an incentive purpose.
Customs and release timeline
Arrival notice, entry filing, customs release and freight release timestamps. Time spent waiting on a hold you did not cause is the single most common reversible band.
Equipment and depot rejections
A dated rejection note when a depot refused the empty. Detention keeps running on the carrier system, but a documented refusal stops the clock on the merits.
The tariff in force on the day
The filed tariff as of the discharge date, not the one on the website today. Carriers reprice locally and invoices are frequently raised on a later, higher tier table.
Step 4 — File before the time bar
Carriers apply short windows to raise a billing dispute — frequently thirty days from the invoice date, sometimes less, and they are enforced. Submit in writing through the carrier's documented channel, attach the rebuilt clock and the evidence pack, and keep the dispute reference. If you are in the US and the carrier will not engage, the Ocean Shipping Reform Act gives you a charge complaint route at the Federal Maritime Commission, and the carrier bears the burden of showing the charge was reasonable.
Or send us the invoice and we will do it
Upload the COSCO Shipping invoice and supporting documents. We rebuild the clock against the filed tariff, tell you what is recoverable and file the dispute for you — the audit itself is free.
General information about commercial billing practice, not legal advice. Free-time figures are planning defaults; your service contract and the carrier's filed tariff govern.