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Detention is paid by the party responsible for the delay: usually the shipper or the consignee, when the truck waits for loading or unloading beyond the free time agreed in the order. The clock does not start when the truck enters the yard, though. It starts when the vehicle reports ready within its booked slot, and that moment must be documented. Without a CMR entry, a signed waiting record and photos, there is little to enforce.
Where detention charges come from
A tractor unit with a driver costs money whether it moves or stands: lease instalments, insurance, wages, allowances. Driver working time keeps running at the ramp too. A truck that loses half a day waiting will often miss its next loading, so the following freight is gone as well. Detention is not a penalty invented by carriers; it is the way the real cost of an immobilised vehicle gets settled. We break down what a truck day consists of in our analysis of FTL rate components.
Free time: how the market actually handles it
Market practice is to define free time in the order: a pool of hours for loading and another for unloading during which the carrier waits at no extra charge. Only once that pool is used up does detention start, usually at an hourly or daily rate stated in the order. You will also see billing by commenced day, and separate rules for weekends and public holidays, when the truck stands still and the driver takes a rest period far from base.
The crucial point: the amount and the calculation method come from the contract. Where the order is silent, the room for dispute grows. The carrier argues from the costs it incurred; the customer challenges every line. A well-drafted order fixes the free time, the detention rate and the documentation rules before anyone starts waiting.
When the clock really starts
The second source of disputes is the starting point. Practice works like this: time counts from the moment the vehicle presents itself within the booked window and reports ready, not from the moment it enters the site or joins the queue outside the gate. If the truck arrives outside its booking, the warehouse may refuse to count time until the next free window. Conversely, if the booking was for a fixed hour and the ramp took the vehicle late, waiting time runs from the booked hour. That is why the exact time of arrival, confirmed by a signature or a booking system, is worth more than any argument made afterwards.
Article 16 CMR: costs of carriage being prevented
The CMR Convention sets no detention rates, but it gives the carrier a general basis: under Article 16 the carrier is entitled to recover the costs caused by requesting or carrying out instructions, unless those costs arose from its own fault. Where carriage cannot proceed as agreed for reasons on the cargo or consignee side, the costs of the standstill and of additional instructions fall on the party entitled to the goods. In day-to-day disputes, however, what decides the outcome is the wording of the order and the quality of the waiting-time documentation.
How to document waiting time so it can be settled
| Evidence | What it proves |
|---|---|
| Waiting record signed by the shipper or consignee | Arrival time, start and end of the wait |
| Entry in the remarks field of the CMR note | The fact and duration of the standstill, visible to all parties |
| Phone photos with time stamp and location | The vehicle's presence on site at the declared time |
| Booking confirmations, correspondence, slot system records | The agreed window and the moment readiness was reported |
| Vehicle telematics data | An independent record of position and standstill time |
How to keep the consignment note entries clean is covered in our guide on filling in the CMR note, and the weight of remarks made at delivery in the piece on CMR reservations. The same rule applies to waiting time: no trace in the documents means, in a dispute, no waiting time.
Polish practice versus UK demurrage
The mechanism is the same; the settlement culture differs. In the UK, deliveries into retail distribution centres run on rigid booking-in slots: a truck without a booked slot may not be accepted at all, and a missed slot means rebooking, sometimes a day or two later. Demurrage accrues under the terms of the order, and disputes get resolved quickly because both sides hold complete records from the booking systems. A similar logic applies to containers, where demurrage and detention follow their own rules, described in our article on container demurrage and detention.
How does to limit detention before it arise?
- Agree realistic time windows and respect the bookings at both ends of the route.
- Have the goods and paperwork ready before the truck arrives: packed, counted, export documents complete.
- Fix free time and the detention rate in the order instead of hoping the subject never comes up.
- React during the wait, not after it: when the delay stretches, decisions about rebooking or new instructions cost less in hour two than in hour ten.
The OTSL role
We manage bookings, booking-in slots and document readiness, and when a standstill happens anyway, we document it as it runs and settle it according to the order, not according to emotions. shippers pay for real time, not for someone else's disorder. Contact us if waiting time is eating the margin on your deliveries, or browse our knowledge base.
Step by step
- Arrival within slot. The driver arrives at the scheduled time slot and reports ready for operation.
- Time confirmation. Free time starts counting once the driver officially registers presence at the site.
- Monitoring duration. Waiting charges start accumulating after the free time limit specified in the order expires.
- Record documentation. The driver secures timestamps and signatures on the CMR or waiting sheet.
- Claim submission. Proof documents and photographs are sent to the ordering party for settlement.
Definitions
- Detention: Payment for the time a vehicle remains at the disposal of the shipper or consignee beyond the agreed free time.
- Demurrage: A term used in British road transport for charges incurred when waiting limits agreed in the order are exceeded.
- CMR (Convention relative au contrat de transport international de marchandises par route): An international consignment note that serves as official evidence of waiting times.
- Free time: The agreed period specified in the transport order during which loading or unloading does not incur extra charges.
- Slot booking: The pre-arranged time slot for a vehicle to report ready at the loading or unloading site.
Sources
UNECE, road transport and the CMR Convention (unece.org)
GOV.UK, the UK government portal (gov.uk)
