China will start charging new port fees on Monday, October 14, for ships with U.S. ties — a direct response to Washington’s Section 301 surcharge on China-linked vessels that begins the same day. Beijing’s levy starts at 400 yuan (about $56) per net ton for each voyage and ratchets up annually to 1,120 yuan ($157) by April 2028, with charges capped at five voyages per vessel per year. China’s policy targets vessels that are U.S.-owned, U.S.-operated, U.S.-flagged or U.S.-built, and the fee is applied at a vessel’s first Chinese port on a given voyage.
On the U.S. side, the new fee schedule begins at $50 per net ton for ships owned or operated by Chinese entities, also capped at five assessments per vessel per year and applied at the first American port of entry on each rotation. Chinese-built vessels operated by non‑Chinese companies face a separate, lower tier — assessed either per ton or per container — with all rates escalating through 2028. Recent U.S. adjustments also refine how certain vehicle carriers are treated under the plan.
Why it matters for trucking: ocean carriers will try to recover these added port-entry costs, and history says they won’t stop at the quay. Expect new or higher “emergency” surcharges and adjustments to terminal handling charges that roll downstream into drayage invoices and intermodal rates. For importers relying on just‑in‑time replenishment, even modest ocean surcharges can flip a lane’s economics, pushing freight off rail to truck for speed — or the reverse when budgets get tight.
Network design could also shift. Because the fees are charged once per foreign entry and capped annually, carriers have an incentive to consolidate U.S. calls into a single gateway, discharge more cargo at that first port, and feed inland markets by truck and rail. That would concentrate volumes — and congestion risk — at major gateways such as Southern California, while creating bigger, more volatile drayage peaking as strings bunch their arrivals to manage fee exposure. For truckers, that means sharper swings in day-to-day load counts, tighter appointment windows, and more weekend gate runs when vessels bunch.
China’s scope language reaches beyond obvious U.S.-flag ships: authorities say entities with at least a 25% U.S. ownership stake fall under the fee regime. That widens the pool of vessels touched by the policy, even if the U.S. share of global commercial shipbuilding remains small, and helps explain why carriers on both sides are preparing pass-throughs.
The broader policy backdrop is hardening. Alongside the port-fee rollouts, Washington this weekend signaled tougher trade actions on some port-side equipment — including tariffs targeting Chinese ship-to-shore cranes and certain truck cargo-handling gear — while Beijing framed its latest moves as countermeasures within a widening tech-and-trade dispute. Those crosscurrents raise the odds of schedule changes, blanked sailings, and last‑minute service reconfigurations that can strand containers and upend chassis pools.
What to do now if you’re in trucking or drayage:
– Sit down with your BCO and 3PL partners to identify which weekly strings hit the fee triggers and when; expect carrier advisories to change with little notice.
– Build surge staffing and weekend availability into October–November plans at gateways most likely to absorb consolidated calls.
– Tighten yard turns and chassis controls; higher per-call volumes will magnify any dwell.
– Revisit accessorials and fuel tables so you’re not upside down when new ocean and terminal surcharges flow through.
– Line up alternate ramps and transload capacity for inland markets if your primary West Coast gateway sees bunching.
Bottom line: the levies themselves are maritime, but the volatility they create will be felt on the asphalt. For carriers and shippers alike, the winners will be the teams that can pivot fastest as vessel schedules and port routings adapt to a new layer of costs on both sides of the Pacific.
Sources: FreightWaves, Associated Press, Reuters, Lloyd’s List, Business Standard, Financial Times
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