Calculator
Container dwell time calculator
Count a container's days on the terminal from discharge or gate-in to pickup, its last free day and the days after it, and see which Los Angeles dwell bucket the stay lands in.
Dwell days are the calendar days between the two dates: a box discharged on the 1st and picked up on the 8th has 7. The bucket uses the Port of Los Angeles report's own bounds, 0-4, 5-8 and 9 or more days. Free days are counted the same way as on the last free day calculator, starting the day after free time begins, and the days after the last free day are calendar days up to the pickup date. The weekday option skips Saturday and Sunday only, not holidays. The Los Angeles shares are from the port's report of Oct 21, 2026. This is a day count on the dates you enter, not fee, demurrage or billing advice.
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How the count works
The calculator subtracts the discharge (or gate-in) date from the pickup date to get the days on the terminal, then places that count in the same 0-4, 5-8 and 9+ day buckets the Port of Los Angeles uses in its daily report. Separately, it counts your free days forward from the day free time starts and reports how many days of the stay fell after the last free day.
A worked example on the latest Los Angeles report. A box discharged on Oct 12, 2026 and picked up on Oct 21, 2026 spent 9 days on the terminal, which puts it in the 9+ day bucket. With 4 calendar free days counted from discharge, its last free day was Oct 16, 2026, and the last 5 days of its stay came after it. On the Port of Los Angeles report of Oct 21, 2026, it would have been one of the 10,637 import boxes in the 9+ day bucket, 18.8% of the 56,437 on the port's terminals.
Dwell days vs the last free day
The last free day calculator counts forward from the day a box becomes available to its deadline, which is the count to run while the box is still waiting. This one measures the whole stay, once it is over or so far, and splits it into free time and the days after it. Dwell and free time can start on different days: a box can come off the ship before customs and the carrier release it, which is why the free-time start is its own field. What the import dwell date means covers which date a tracking screen counts from.
The Los Angeles buckets on the latest report
Import boxes on Port of Los Angeles terminals by days there, from the port's report of Oct 21, 2026 (56,437 boxes in all):
- 0-4 days: 38,089 boxes (67.5%)
- 5-8 days: 7,711 boxes (13.7%)
- 9+ days: 10,637 boxes (18.8%)
The chart and the full history are on the Los Angeles import-container dwell page. Nine days is the line the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach chose in 2021 for a proposed fee on truck-bound import boxes that was never collected; dwell fee vs demurrage explains how that differs from demurrage.
Common questions
How do you calculate container dwell time?
Count the calendar days from the day the container came off the ship, or entered the gate for an export, to the day it left the terminal. A box discharged on the 1st and picked up on the 8th has 7 days of dwell. The calculator above does the count and splits it at the last free day.
What is the difference between dwell time and free time?
Dwell time is the whole stay on the terminal. Free time is the number of days the tariff allows before storage charges can start, and it ends on the last free day. A box can sit 9 days and spend 5 of them after its free time ran out.
What counts as a long dwell at Los Angeles?
The Port of Los Angeles reports the import boxes on its terminals in 0-4, 5-8 and 9+ day buckets, and 9+ is the aging one. On its report of Oct 21, 2026, 18.8% of the 56,437 import boxes had been there 9 days or more.
Does the calculator work out demurrage?
No. It counts days on the dates you enter. What a box is charged depends on its tariff, the daily rate and how the tariff treats weekends and holidays, which the carrier or terminal sets.
Should I count from discharge or gate-in?
For an import, dwell is usually counted from discharge off the ship; for an export, from gate-in at the terminal. If free time starts on a different day, such as when the box is released for pickup, enter that day as the free-time start.