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# US average vessel dwell at berth

The archived national average time a container ship sits at a US berth, AIS-derived, in hours

_Data through Jun 2023 · source last checked Sep 1, 2026 · page revised Aug 18, 2026_

> Series paused — last quoted Jun 2023.

> Vessel dwell at berth is a SHIP metric: how long a container ship sits at the berth, AIS-derived, averaged across the top-25 US ports. It peaked at 37 hrs in May 2022 during the 2021 to 2022 congestion, and last reported 27 hrs for June 2023, when BTS paused the series. It is not container (box) dwell on the terminal, and not the ship queue. For the live picture, see the ship queue and the truck planning-time index; for the live complement on container dwell specifically, see the Los Angeles import-container dwell page below.

Vessel dwell at berth across the top-25 US ports last reported 27 hours in June 2023, when the Bureau of Transportation Statistics paused the series.

## BTS series, archived: last datapoint June 2023. Month-over-month gaps don't exist in this series (it never had one); YoY compares each month to the nearest reading ~12 months earlier, so 2019 reads n/a.

| Month | Avg hours at berth | YoY |
| --- | --- | --- |
| January 2019 | 29 hrs | n/a |
| February 2019 | 31 hrs | n/a |
| March 2019 | 28 hrs | n/a |
| April 2019 | 28 hrs | n/a |
| May 2019 | 28 hrs | n/a |
| June 2019 | 27 hrs | n/a |
| July 2019 | 28 hrs | n/a |
| August 2019 | 28 hrs | n/a |
| September 2019 | 28 hrs | n/a |
| October 2019 | 27 hrs | n/a |
| November 2019 | 27 hrs | n/a |
| December 2019 | 28 hrs | n/a |
| January 2020 | 29 hrs | 0.0% |
| February 2020 | 27 hrs | -12.9% |
| March 2020 | 27 hrs | -3.6% |
| April 2020 | 28 hrs | 0.0% |
| May 2020 | 26 hrs | -7.1% |
| June 2020 | 27 hrs | 0.0% |
| July 2020 | 28 hrs | 0.0% |
| August 2020 | 28 hrs | 0.0% |
| September 2020 | 29 hrs | +3.6% |
| October 2020 | 30 hrs | +11.1% |
| November 2020 | 30 hrs | +11.1% |
| December 2020 | 29 hrs | +3.6% |
| January 2021 | 31 hrs | +6.9% |
| February 2021 | 32 hrs | +18.5% |
| March 2021 | 31 hrs | +14.8% |
| April 2021 | 33 hrs | +17.9% |
| May 2021 | 32 hrs | +23.1% |
| June 2021 | 30 hrs | +11.1% |
| July 2021 | 33 hrs | +17.9% |
| August 2021 | 33 hrs | +17.9% |
| September 2021 | 32 hrs | +10.3% |
| October 2021 | 33 hrs | +10.0% |
| November 2021 | 32 hrs | +6.7% |
| December 2021 | 33 hrs | +13.8% |
| January 2022 | 35 hrs | +12.9% |
| February 2022 | 36 hrs | +12.5% |
| March 2022 | 34 hrs | +9.7% |
| April 2022 | 36 hrs | +9.1% |
| May 2022 | 37 hrs | +15.6% |
| June 2022 | 35 hrs | +16.7% |
| July 2022 | 35 hrs | +6.1% |
| August 2022 | 36 hrs | +9.1% |
| September 2022 | 35 hrs | +9.4% |
| October 2022 | 32 hrs | -3.0% |
| November 2022 | 33 hrs | +3.1% |
| December 2022 | 31 hrs | -6.1% |
| January 2023 | 30 hrs | -14.3% |
| February 2023 | 29 hrs | -19.4% |
| March 2023 | 28 hrs | -17.6% |
| April 2023 | 28 hrs | -22.2% |
| May 2023 | 29 hrs | -21.6% |
| June 2023 | 27 hrs | -22.9% |

## About US average vessel dwell at berth

This is the classic port-dwell number from the pandemic congestion crisis: the monthly average time a container ship sat stationary at a US top-25-port berth, derived from AIS ship-position data by BTS. It is a national aggregate, not a per-port number, and it is a ship metric, not a measure of how long a container then sits in the yard. BTS reported it from January 2019 through June 2023 and has not updated it since; we checked again on 2026-08-13 and the underlying dataset still has no row past June 2023, so this page stays a labeled historical reference, never a current reading. The metric-precision distinction it teaches, vessel dwell versus box dwell versus the ship queue, is the whole point of this site.

This series has no live successor on this site, but a related live number does exist: the [Los Angeles import-container dwell page](/boxdwell/los-angeles-import-containers) publishes a DAILY, current read on how long import boxes are sitting on Port of Los Angeles terminals today, split by dwell-age bucket. It is not the same metric (that page counts BOXES on the terminal by how long they have dwelt; this page averages how long SHIPS sat at berth, nationally, through mid-2023), but it is the closest thing this site publishes to a live picture of container dwell, and the one to read for a current sense of how long boxes are sitting rather than how ships once did.

## About this data

- Source: BTS Monthly Average Container Vessel Dwell Times, top 25 US ports
- Series: National average time a container ship sits at berth
- Basis: Ship at berth, AIS-derived, not box or terminal dwell
- Geography: National, top 25 US ports
- Unit: hours
- Calculation period: Monthly average
- Last observation: Jun 2023
- Update frequency: Monthly, archived series paused since mid-2023

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Cite: US average container vessel dwell at berth 27 hrs, last reported June 2023 (AIS-derived, BTS; archived through mid-2023, a ship metric, not box dwell). The Dwell. https://the-dwell.com/dwell/us-average
Canonical URL: https://the-dwell.com/dwell/us-average