Northeast Freight Time one clock, four readings

Why Detention Invoices Go Unpaid

ATRI's finding is the one worth starting from: 94.5% of carriers say they charge detention, and fewer than half of those invoices actually get paid. For a software-oriented reference on recorded work time and accountability, online timesheets.

That is not a collections problem. It is a documentation problem with a collections symptom, and both sides lose — the carrier absorbs the cost, and the paying side spends hours disputing charges it would sometimes have accepted. For broader freight and commercial context, see Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

Reviewed August 9, 2026. Rate ranges from 2025–2026 industry reporting; treat as ballpark and check your own contracts.

Why they get rejected

Six reasons, in rough order of frequency.

No timestamps. The invoice asserts three hours and shows nothing. A charge with no arrival and departure record can be rejected outright, and reasonably.

Timestamps from one party only. Driver-reported times, unsupported by any independent record, against a facility with a gate system. The facility's number wins by default.

No agreed definition. The rate confirmation says "detention after 2 hours" without saying two hours from what. Every boundary in that sentence is contestable, and the ambiguity is resolved by whoever is holding the money.

The wrong word. An invoice saying demurrage for a dry van at a warehouse dock. Different concept, different rate schedule, and it signals the charge was generated rather than checked.

Late submission. Many contracts have a window. A valid claim submitted outside it is not a valid claim — and some claims are better written off than pursued.

And no prior notice. The receiver first learns of a three-hour wait when the invoice arrives, six weeks later, with no opportunity to have done anything about it.

What a defensible claim contains

Assemble these and the rejection rate falls sharply.

Arrival and departure timestamps from a source that is not only your driver. Gate records, a geofence event, a signed check-in, a facility system. Two independent sources beats one authoritative one.

The contractual basis, quoted. The clause, the free-time allowance, the rate.

The arithmetic shown. Arrival, free time expiry, departure, billable duration, rate, total. Somebody on the other side has to be able to verify it without asking you.

Notification at the time, not at invoicing. A message when the free window expires converts the charge from a surprise into a documented event, and it gives the receiver a chance to fix the situation, which is what they actually wanted.

And the load reference tying it to the specific movement.

That is five elements, and the FMC's ocean rule requires functionally the same thing on the maritime side — which is a useful precedent even where it does not apply.

The rates, and what they mean

Industry reporting for 2025–2026 puts truck detention at roughly $50 to $100 per hour after a two-hour free window, with specialised equipment — reefers, tankers, flatbeds requiring tarping — running to about $125.

Two things to understand about those numbers.

They are not a wage. BLS put average hourly earnings in truck transportation at $32.41 as of April 2026. The gap is equipment standing idle, fuel, the next load not taken, and hours-of-service consumed. A receiver arguing that the rate exceeds what the driver earns has misunderstood what is being charged for.

And they are negotiated, not standard. Free time and rate are contract terms, which means both are available to discuss before the load rather than after.

For the paying side

Symmetry matters here, because a site that only argued the carrier's case would be a carrier's marketing.

Reject charges without documentation, and say what would make them payable. A rejection with a reason is a negotiation; a rejection without one is an invitation to a dispute.

Audit your own facility's dwell before disputing. If your gate data shows a three-hour average, the invoices are not the problem. Detention is mostly a facility problem and the invoice is the messenger.

And notice the pricing you cannot see. Carriers quietly price chronic facilities higher, or decline their loads. That cost does not appear on any invoice and it is usually larger than the detention would have been — as is the share of it billed under other names.

The short version