Do shippers have to pay truck detention?
No law forces it, your contract does, and the side with better timestamps wins.
Updated August 2026 · third-party figures cited inline
Short answer: no. No federal law requires shippers to pay truck detention. It is purely a contract term, most often 2 free hours and then a rate set by your contract; rates vary by lane and agreement. Whether an invoice actually gets paid comes down to whose arrival and departure records survive scrutiny.
No federal mandate, and regulators admit the data gap
Trucking has no federal detention-pay rule. Railroads must report dwell weekly under 49 CFR Part 1250; trucking has no equivalent. The US DOT Office of Inspector General said it plainly in its 2018 audit: "accurate industrywide data on driver detention do not currently exist." The same audit tied detention to $1.1 to $1.3 billion a year in lost driver income and a 6.2% higher expected crash rate for every 15 extra minutes of dwell. Detention is real and costly; it is just not mandated. The obligation lives in the contract: rate confirmation, master agreement, or accessorial schedule. Nowhere else.
What the market actually pays
Because detention is contractual, rates cluster around convention: two free hours, then an hourly rate.
| Item | Typical figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Free time before detention starts | 2 hours | US DOT OIG, 2018 |
| Contract detention rate | Set by your contract; rates vary by lane and agreement | Your contract |
| Marginal cost of running a truck | $90.89 per hour | ATRI, 2025 update |
| Wait past free time on detained stops | 1.4 hours past a two-hour window (about 3.4 h in all) | FMCSA study (84 FR 26933) |
| Stops where detention occurs | 39.3% (56.2% for refrigerated) | ATRI, 2024 |
| Fleets that invoice detention | 94.5%, but fewer than half collect | ATRI, 2024 |
| Industry-wide annual cost | $15B ($3.6B direct + $11.5B lost productivity) | ATRI, 2024 |
The $90.89 figure explains carrier persistence: an hour at your dock costs a carrier roughly what the low end of the detention range pays.
Records are the leverage, on both sides
94.5% of fleets bill detention, yet fewer than half collect (ATRI, 2024). The gap is evidence. The driver's ELD says 8:02; the guard's handwritten log says 9:15. Neither side can prove anything, so the invoice gets haggled down or written off. Timestamps protect shippers too: the same gate record that validates a fair claim knocks out an inflated one. Vantage, our phone-based YMS, stamps every gate-in and gate-out automatically, so a detention dispute becomes a lookup instead of an argument.
Refusing to pay is legal. It is not free.
A shipper with no detention clause can decline the invoice. Practically, the cost shows up elsewhere: ATRI's 2024 data found trucks speed 14.6% more on average after being detained, and carriers score facilities, so chronic dwell gets priced into future rates. The cheaper path is cutting dwell itself, which starts with knowing how long each trailer actually sat.
FAQ
Is truck detention pay required by federal law?
No. Railroads must report dwell weekly under 49 CFR Part 1250, but trucking has no equivalent mandate. Detention pay exists only where a contract, rate confirmation, or accessorial schedule creates it.
What is a normal truck detention rate per hour?
The hourly rate after 2 free hours is set by your contract; rates vary by lane and agreement. For context, ATRI's 2025 update puts a truck's marginal operating cost at $90.89 per hour.
Free tools: the detention calculator turns your truck volumes into detention hours, and the 2026 yard & detention benchmarks collect every number here with citations.
Related questions: why detention invoices go unpaid · what records win a detention claim · how to check a detention invoice before you pay it · what a good truck turnaround time looks like
Make detention disputes a lookup
For warehouse and DC yard operators: phone-based gate timestamps, no hardware, from $149 a month, free plan, no card. Driver or carrier? You don’t need an account.