01
Liftgate fee
Charged when a shipment needs a liftgate for loading or unloading at a location without a loading dock, common for residential or small-business deliveries.
Home/Demurrage and Detention vs. Accessorial Charges
Freight Billing Disputes
Demurrage, Detention, and Accessorial Charges: What They Actually Mean, and How to Stop Overpaying Them
Demurrage and detention are two of the most commonly disputed line items on a freight invoice, and most shippers don't actually know the difference between them, which makes disputing an incorrect charge harder than it should be. Accessorial charges are the broader category both of these actually belong to, extra fees layered onto a base freight rate for anything outside standard pickup and delivery.
Demurrage vs. detention: the distinction that actually matters
Demurrage is a charge for a container or trailer sitting too long at a port, rail yard, or terminal, beyond the free time allotted, before it's picked up. Detention is a charge for the same equipment sitting too long once it's left the terminal, at a shipper's or receiver's own facility, beyond the free time allowed for loading or unloading. The two get confused constantly because they describe the same underlying problem, equipment held too long, at two different points in the journey, and carriers don't always apply the distinction consistently or correctly on an invoice.
This distinction matters financially because the free-time allowances and billing rates for demurrage and detention are frequently different, and a carrier misapplying one as the other, or miscounting the actual free-time window, is one of the more common, legitimate billing disputes in freight. Without software actually checking invoiced charges against the contracted free-time terms, these errors get paid instead of disputed.
Accessorial charges: the broader category
Accessorial charges cover any fee beyond the base linehaul rate for something outside standard pickup and delivery. Demurrage and detention are two specific types; these are others worth knowing by name.
02
Inside delivery
Charged when freight has to be moved inside a building rather than dropped at the dock or curb, since standard delivery assumes dock-to-dock or curbside handoff only.
03
Residential delivery surcharge
Applied when a delivery address is a residence rather than a commercial location, reflecting the added time and access difficulty of a residential stop.
04
Reweigh and reclassification fee
Charged when a carrier reweighs or reclassifies a shipment after pickup and finds it doesn't match the originally booked weight or freight class, a frequent, legitimate source of billing disputes when the reweigh itself is inaccurate.
05
Limited access fee
Applied for delivery to a location with restricted access, a construction site, a military base, a location requiring special appointment scheduling.
Why this is a software problem, not just a billing-department problem
A freight audit function is only as good as its ability to check every invoiced accessorial charge, demurrage, detention, or any other, against the actual contract terms and the actual event timeline, automatically and at volume. nVision Global and similar outsourced freight audit providers built an entire business around doing exactly this as a service, which tells you how real and how financially meaningful the problem is at scale.
We build the audit logic that checks demurrage and detention charges against your actual free-time terms and event timestamps, and accessorial charges generally against your actual contracted rates, so a billing error gets flagged automatically instead of slipping through because nobody has time to manually verify every invoice line.
Where this connects to
Let's talk
Get a free quote on auditing your freight invoices
Tell us how demurrage, detention, and accessorial charges currently get checked against your contracts, if at all, and how many invoices you're processing a month. We'll tell you honestly what an automated audit against your real contract terms would catch.
Get a free quote → →Questions people ask
What's the actual difference between demurrage and detention?
Demurrage is for equipment held too long at the port, rail yard, or terminal before pickup; detention is for the same equipment held too long after it's left the terminal, typically at a shipper's or receiver's own facility during loading or unloading. They describe the same problem, equipment held too long, at two different points.
Are accessorial charges always legitimate, or are they often disputed?
Many are entirely legitimate reflections of real extra service, a liftgate, inside delivery, a residential stop. They're also one of the most common sources of billing disputes, since rates, applicability, and whether a charge was even warranted vary and aren't always applied correctly by a carrier.
How do we know if we're being overcharged on demurrage or detention?
By checking the invoiced charge against your actual contracted free-time allowance and the real event timeline, when the container or trailer actually arrived and was actually released. Without software doing this check systematically, overcharges often go unnoticed and get paid.
What does nVision Global actually do, and should we just use a service like that?
They run freight audit as an outsourced service, checking invoices against contracts at scale. Whether an outsourced service or building audit logic into your own systems makes more sense depends on your invoice volume and whether you want this function in-house or out.
Can software actually automate catching these billing errors?
Yes, if it's built to check specific contract terms, free-time allowances, accessorial rates, against actual invoice line items and event timestamps. We build that audit logic directly rather than relying on someone manually reviewing invoices.
Do you build this into existing freight or TMS software, or is it a separate tool?
Usually built into or connected to whatever freight management or TMS software you already run, so the audit happens where your team already manages shipments rather than requiring a separate system to check.