A gate that’s closed for a holiday doesn’t always mean a clock that’s stopped. Importers get burned every year because they assume the two move together, and then the demurrage invoice shows charges for days nobody could have picked the box up. The gap between “the terminal was closed” and “free time was tolled” is where the money leaks.
Free time and gate hours are two different calendars
Free time is contractual. It comes from the ocean carrier’s tariff or your service contract and it’s counted in days — usually calendar days at South Florida terminals, though some carriers count working days. Gate hours are operational. They come from the terminal operator and the local ILA labor agreement, and they tell you the hours a truck can physically transact.
Those two calendars are set by different parties, published in different places, and updated on different schedules. A terminal can announce a holiday closure a week out while your carrier’s free-time count keeps ticking in the background, because the carrier tariff governs the count, not the gate.
Does a holiday extend free time?
Sometimes. Many ocean carrier tariffs say free time is computed in calendar days but that demurrage will not accrue on days the terminal was closed for the full day, or that the last free day rolls to the next business day if it lands on a closure. Others make no such allowance at all. The only way to know is to read the demurrage and detention rules for that specific carrier — and to know that they differ between two carriers calling the same berth on the same week.
Under the Ocean Shipping Reform Act and the FMC’s detention and demurrage rules, carriers and marine terminal operators are expected to bill only for charges that serve their incentive purpose, which is generally understood to mean not billing for days the cargo could not have been retrieved. That principle helps you when you dispute a charge. It does not automatically stop the invoice from being generated in the first place. Someone has to catch it.
Which closures actually hit South Florida gates
Three separate sources of closure affect PortMiami and Port Everglades:
- ILA holidays. The longshore labor calendar includes dates that aren’t federal holidays at all. These are the ones that surprise importers, because a normal U.S. business-day calendar shows nothing unusual.
- Federal and state holidays. Gates may close, but also consider that CBP staffing and other agency availability changes, which matters if you have an exam or a hold.
- Terminal-specific schedules. Individual operators publish their own modified hours. It is common for one terminal to run a shortened gate while another closes entirely on the same date, and for the empty return window to differ from the import pickup window at the same facility.
Do not run your planning off a generic holiday list. Pull the published schedule from each terminal you’re actually using, and confirm the empty return policy separately. Our PortMiami terminals guide and the Port Everglades terminals guide lay out who’s who at each facility.
The real problem is appointment compression, not the closed day
One closed gate day rarely sinks a move on its own. What sinks it is the two or three days on either side. Every box that would have moved on the holiday gets pushed into the next open window, appointment slots vanish within minutes of release, and chassis availability tightens at exactly the moment everyone needs one.
So the practical risk profile around a holiday looks like this:
- The day before a closure: slots fill early, gates back up, turn times stretch.
- The closure itself: no transactions, and possibly no empty returns either.
- The day after: heaviest volume of the cycle, plus any vessel that discharged over the closure.
If your last free day falls anywhere in that window, treat it as if it fell two days earlier. Our breakdown of terminal appointments at PortMiami and Port Everglades goes deeper on how the booking windows actually behave.
How to plan pickups around a closure
Work backwards from the last free day, not forward from the vessel
Get your last free day in writing as soon as the container is discharged, then overlay the gate calendar. If you don’t have a clean read on how the count works, start with what last free day means in drayage and the difference between demurrage, detention, and per diem — they’re three separate charges from potentially three separate parties, and a holiday affects each one differently.
Clear the paperwork early
Customs release, carrier freight release, and any partner-government-agency hold all need to be resolved before a closure, not during it. Broker offices run short staffing over holidays too. A box that clears at 4 p.m. the day before a two-day closure is functionally not released until the gates reopen.
Pre-pull and stage
The most reliable defense is to get the container out of the terminal before the clock and the closure collide. If your warehouse or consignee can’t receive it yet, that container can sit on our 5-acre secured yard in Miami, which has 24/7 access and capacity for 450-plus containers and trailers. Pre-pulling converts an uncontrollable terminal charge into a predictable yard cost, and it takes the appointment scramble off your critical path.
Plan the empty return as its own move
Per diem keeps running on carrier equipment whether or not a return location is open. Confirm the empty return window for your specific carrier and container type before the holiday — reefers, 45s, and out-of-gauge equipment frequently have narrower return acceptance than a standard 40.
Audit the invoice after every holiday week
Holiday weeks produce the highest rate of billing errors we see: days charged on full closures, per diem charged while returns were suspended, and accessorials for dry runs that happened because a gate closed early. Pull the terminal’s own published closure notice, match it against the billed days, and dispute in writing with that notice attached. The drayage invoice audit checklist walks through the line items worth checking every time.
Get ahead of the next closure
The importers who don’t pay holiday demurrage are simply the ones who looked at the gate calendar the week the vessel sailed instead of the week it arrived. If you want a second set of eyes on a box that’s landing near a closure, send us the container number and the terminal — we’ll tell you what the realistic pickup window looks like. Start with a drayage quote, or track what’s already moving in Go Truck Hub. Published starting rates are $500 at PortMiami and $450 at Port Everglades; actual pricing depends on the move.
Frequently asked questions
Does demurrage stop accruing when the terminal is closed for a holiday?
It depends on the ocean carrier’s tariff or your service contract, not on the terminal. Some carriers suspend accrual on full closure days or roll the last free day to the next business day, and others count straight calendar days regardless. Confirm the rule for your specific carrier, and if you are billed for a day the gate was closed all day, dispute it in writing with the terminal’s published closure notice attached.
Are ILA holidays the same as federal holidays at PortMiami and Port Everglades?
No. The longshore labor calendar includes dates that are not federal holidays, which is why a container can sit unmovable on a day that looks like a normal business day on your calendar. Individual terminals also publish their own modified hours, so one facility may run a shortened gate while another closes entirely on the same date. Check each terminal’s published schedule rather than a generic holiday list.
What is the best way to avoid holiday demurrage on an import container?
Pre-pull the container before the closure and stage it off dock. Clear customs release, carrier freight release, and any agency holds several days in advance, book the earliest available appointment, and move the box to a secured yard if the consignee cannot receive it yet. That converts an unpredictable terminal charge into a controlled storage cost and removes the post-holiday appointment scramble from your critical path.
