Turning in Your Loaded Export Containers: What the heck is the “Earliest” Receiving Date?

There are two angles to this question.

First, the earliest receiving date or “ERD” (variously referred to as early receiving date or first receiving date) is the date before which it is not permitted to tender a loaded export container to the ocean carrier. It is the date that represents the opening of the window for cargo receiving for a particular booking. Typically, the receiving location, such as the marine terminal at the port, will turn away any attempt to tender a loaded export container before the ERD (and in the event that they do accept the load before the opening of that receiving window, then the shipper can plan to receive a bill for storage, more correctly known as export demurrage). As you see, this first angle to our question has a tidy answer.

But now things get a bit messier. The second angle on this question focuses on the dilemma of shippers across the USA who are trying to nail down exactly what the heck that actual ERD is for their particular export booking - and why this uncertainty is a problem.

Consider a merchant-haulage booking from an ocean port, wherein it is the shipper who arranges with their own trucker to deliver the loaded container to the ocean terminal. The shipper receives a booking confirmation which includes some key dates, as in these real-life examples:

Booking Example #1 Booking Example #2 Booking Example #3

Earliest Receiving Date Mon Sep 26 Tue Feb 7 Mon Jan 23

Documentation Cutoff Wed Sep 28 (12:00) Fri Feb 10 (12:00) Tue Jan 24 (12:00)

Cargo Cutoff Mon Oct 3 (16:00) Fri Feb 10 (16:00) Thu Jan 26 (16:00)

Vessel ETD Thu Oct 6 Mon Feb 20 Tue Jan 31

A first observation is that the cargo cutoff date can be quite some time prior to vessel departure date and this will add lead time to your shipping (and sales) activities. Shippers are wise to consider cutoff dates – not just sail dates – when calculating cargo transit times and delivery lead times for their organizations. As a side note, today’s ultra-large vessels have contributed to this occurrence because of the extended time needed in port to work these mammoth ships. Although, it is worth noting that in the above example #2, the ship did not berth until Sunday Feb 19, highlighting that the logic behind the receiving window dates is not always self-explanatory or predictable.

The next observation is that the length of receiving windows vary – there is no consistency that a shipper can rely on and build into their standard export operation. Particularly during the recent periods of excessive port congestion, we have seen these receiving windows shrink, sometimes to just one or two days.

And let us not overlook the impact of the documentation cutoff. While there are some workarounds (all of which create a duplication of work for all involved), the fact is that it is typically most appropriate to complete the cargo loading process at the loading facility before the documentation cutoff date in order to have the data required for the documents (such as cargo weights, container and seal numbers). With that in mind, we can see how meeting that milestone can further and significantly reduce the receiving window, as in our example #3, reducing the receiving window to just 1 ½ days.

Coordinating the schedules of the truckers and the container loading facilities and still meeting the cutoff within these short receiving windows has come to demand a new level of talent, particularly when bookings are for multiple container shipments. This often involves either pre-pulling empty containers to have them at the ready to meet origin loading schedules or loading in advance of the earliest receiving date and storing the loaded containers until the receiving window opens or some combination of these two strategies, all steps that are effective but add cost to each export shipment.

My dear fellow shippers, if you have not yet been congratulated for succeeding to load your containers and to deliver them timely to the port, meeting both cargo and documentation cutoffs so that they ship on board the booked vessel, all the while minimizing your companies’ exposure to extra costs, then allow me to do that now. You have my congratulations on a complicated job well done!

But I have not yet mentioned the biggest challenge of all and the purpose of inviting you to this deeper dive: the phenomenon of changing earliest receiving dates.

This issue has been brought into the public discourse in the context of unreasonable ocean carrier practices under review by the Federal Maritime Commission (see Final Report from Fact Finding 29, which recommends a rulemaking “to provide coherence and clarity on earliest return date practices” and an Aug 31, 2022 letter of recommendation from the National Shippers’ Advisory Committee requesting attention to ERD issues) – and for good reason.

Imagine that you have mapped out your time-sensitive plan for loading containers for your upcoming booking, scheduling your trucker and your loading facility. Imagine your trucker has collected the empty container(s) to execute the plan and suddenly it is announced that, because of a delay to the vessel arrival to port (or whatever reason), the earliest receiving date is no longer “tomorrow” but in 4 or 5 days hence. How many empty containers has your trucker already pulled that might now be out for longer than the standard free time and risk incurring detention charges? How many containers might have already been stuffed that your trucker is now unable to return until possibly after the expiration of the standard free time? It will be a nuisance if the ocean carrier sends an invoice for detention but, in all likelihood, they will rescind those charges once the unreasonableness of the goalposts being moved after the container was already in motion is pointed out. Or, if the ocean carrier should not step up, there is an excellent chance that the FMC would find that the charges should be reversed if brought to them through the Charge Complaint process.

We should see more on this when the Federal Maritime Commission publishes their proposed rulemaking on Demurrage and Detention Billing, expected around June of 2023.

But I believe shippers (and their truckers) can take this a step further. Clearly, no one should be penalized by detention fees assessed when earliest receiving dates change, but there is also the matter of other consequential costs from those date changes. How about the usage fees for the chassis that are now sitting under containers that have been stopped in their tracks? Plus any extra trucking expense to shuttle around empty or loaded containers as they are delayed in transit to the port? And, of course, any storage costs? It seems unquestionable that the indifferent practices of ocean carriers to postpone the initially communicated ERD must be prohibited or at least come with an acknowledgement that the ocean carrier will bear all associated expenses to the cargo. Are you still laughing at my idealism? Well how about a compromise, like the earliest receiving date may not be postponed (1) within 10 days of the originally published date since operational plans will already be set and, in no case (2) if empty containers have already been pulled for the affected booking. The solution for the ocean carriers is simple: published receiving windows must be honored and accommodated, regardless of any failures to the vessel schedule integrity or other operational problems of the ocean carrier.

In Commissioner Dye’s Final Report from Fact Finding 29, she recommends a rulemaking “to provide coherence and clarity on earliest return date practices”. We will see if this appears in any of the upcoming Federal Maritime Commission actions but in the meanwhile, it is in shippers’ interest to speak up when faced with this unreasonable practice and lay any and all associated extra costs at the feet of the ocean carrier. They might compensate you or they might provide an exceptional allowance to deliver in accordance with the original ERD – and they might even try to avoid those unpleasant discussions in future by improving their practices.