What is detention pay in trucking?

Detention pay (also called demurrage) is the per-hour fee a shipper or receiver owes the carrier when loading or unloading takes longer than the agreed free time — typically 2 hours free, then $50-$100 per hour after. It compensates the carrier for the truck's productive time lost sitting at a dock.

A driver arriving on-time at a shipper or receiver gets 2 hours of free time built into the rate to load or unload. After that 2-hour grace window, every additional hour the truck sits at the dock costs the shipper or receiver detention pay — typically $50/hour, sometimes capped at $300-$500/day. The clock starts when the driver checks in (records: time-stamped check-in receipt, gate slip, or in-cab telematics) and stops when they're released. Detention exists because a truck sitting at a dock isn't earning revenue — the carrier is losing the opportunity to dispatch that truck to its next load. For a truck averaging $2.50/mile and 500 miles per day, every 6 hours of detention is roughly $750 of foregone revenue. The catch: collecting detention is operationally hard. The carrier needs documented in/out times signed by the facility (or accepted from the in-cab ELD), submitted with the invoice within 24-48 hours, and approved by the broker or shipper. Brokers often waive detention on the carrier's behalf to maintain the shipper relationship, then pass nothing through. The 2018 ELD mandate made detention more visible — the FMCSA's analysis showed driver detention is one of the largest single drags on truckload productivity, costing the industry roughly $1.1 billion annually in foregone revenue.