Answers · Gate

What do gate in and gate out mean in shipping?

Ingate and outgate, explained: what each means at a port terminal and at a warehouse, what "gate in full" means on a tracking page, and why the time between the two matters.

Reviewed September 2026 · sources linked inline

Short answer: Gate in (in-gate, ingate) is the moment a truck, trailer or container comes in through a facility's gate. Gate out (out-gate, outgate) is the moment it leaves. The facility can be a port terminal, a rail ramp, a container depot or a warehouse yard. The time between the two is how long the unit stayed, and that number is the basis for dwell, turnaround and any detention bill. In the container industry's standard event list, these are the equipment events "Gated in" (GTIN) and "Gated out" (GTOT) (DCSA Track & Trace event domain).

Gate in and gate out at a terminal vs at a warehouse

The words mean the same thing everywhere: crossing the gate, in or out. What happens at the gate differs by facility.

Where	Gate in usually means	Gate out usually means
Port terminal or rail ramp	A trucker delivers a container (an export load or an empty return), or arrives to pick one up	A trucker leaves with a container, or leaves after dropping one
Container depot	An empty container is returned	An empty container is released for a new load
Warehouse or DC yard	A truck arrives to deliver or pick up, or to drop a trailer; the guard checks it in	The truck leaves the yard, loaded or empty; the guard checks it out

At intermodal gates, the handover of a container, chassis or trailer between the parties to the Uniform Intermodal Interchange and Facilities Access Agreement is recorded on an Equipment Interchange Receipt (EIR), and the agreement refers to "ingate or outgate EIR" by name (UIIA, section D.2.d). A warehouse that has not signed the UIIA is not a party to that receipt, so its own gate log is its record.

What "gate in full" and "gate out empty" mean on a tracking page

Carrier and port tracking pages list a container's events in order: gate out empty at the depot, gate in full at the port of loading, loaded, discharged, gate out full at the destination terminal, and so on. The Digital Container Shipping Association (DCSA) publishes the standard list these events follow. Its equipment event types include Loaded (LOAD), Discharged (DISC), Gated in (GTIN), Gated out (GTOT), Pick-up (PICK) and Drop-off (DROP), and each equipment event carries an empty indicator, EMPTY or LADEN (DCSA Track & Trace standard). "Full" on a tracking page is the laden case.

Not every carrier uses the DCSA codes or the same wording. The meaning of a line on a specific tracking page is set by that carrier.

Why the two times matter

Dwell and turnaround. Gate out minus gate in is how long the unit was on site. For a live load or unload, it is the truck's turnaround time. For a dropped trailer, it is the trailer's dwell. Both need the date as well as the clock time on each record, or overnight stays come out wrong.

Detention. In an FMCSA-sponsored study, drivers were detained at about 10 percent of their stops, for an average of 1.4 hours beyond a commonly accepted two-hour loading and unloading period (84 FR 26933, June 10, 2019). A detention bill is an argument about arrival and departure times, so the side with a gate-in and gate-out record has the stronger case. Time a driver spends waiting at a shipper's facility, or loading and unloading, counts as on-duty time under federal hours-of-service rules (49 CFR 395.2), which is one reason carriers track it closely.

Security. For CTPAT highway carriers, gates where vehicles or people enter or exit "must be manned or monitored" (criterion 9.4), and drivers delivering or receiving cargo must be positively identified with photo ID before cargo is received or released (criterion 10.3) (CTPAT Highway Carriers Minimum Security Criteria, March 2020, pages 34 and 41). The gate is where those checks happen, and the gate log is where they are written down.

What a warehouse gate log records at gate in and gate out

One record per visit, opened at gate in and closed at gate out, is easier to use than two separate lists:

Field	Filled at	Why
Date and time in	Gate in	Starts the dwell and detention clock
Trailer or container number	Gate in	Finds the unit later; container numbers carry a check digit (try the container number checker)
Carrier and driver	Gate in	Who brought it, and who was identified at the gate
Seal number, loaded or empty	Gate in, again at gate out	Shows whether the seal and load status changed on site
Date and time out	Gate out	Closes the record; out minus in is the stay

The guide to logging trailer check-in at the gate covers the full field list and a free Excel gate log. If you work in a spreadsheet, keep time in and time out as full date-times in the same row, then =(B2-A2)*24 gives the stay in hours.

FAQ

What does gate in mean in shipping?

Gate in (also written in-gate or ingate) is the moment a truck, trailer or container passes through a facility's gate to come in: a port terminal, a rail ramp, a depot or a warehouse yard. The gate-in time is when the unit's stay at that facility starts. In the container industry's standard event list (DCSA Track & Trace), Gated in (GTIN) is one of the equipment event types.

What does outgate mean in shipping?

Outgate (gate out, out-gate) is the moment the truck, trailer or container leaves through the gate. At a terminal it usually means the unit was picked up and left; at a warehouse it means the truck has left the yard. The time between gate in and gate out is how long the unit stayed. DCSA's code for it is GTOT (Gated out).

What does gate in full or gate out empty mean on a container tracking page?

Container tracking pages show equipment events with a status for whether the box was loaded. DCSA's equipment events carry an empty indicator of EMPTY or LADEN, so a line like gate in full means the loaded container entered the facility, and gate out empty means the empty container left it.

How do you calculate the time between gate in and gate out?

Subtract the gate-in date and time from the gate-out date and time. In Excel, with gate in in A2 and gate out in B2 as full date-times, =(B2-A2)*24 gives hours, because Excel stores date-times in days. Include the date, not just the clock time, or any stay that crosses midnight comes out wrong.

Log gate in and gate out on a phone.

In Vantage, the guard checks each trailer in at the gate on a phone, the number is read on the device, and gate out closes the same record with a time out. Every record gets a timestamp, and a photo whenever the camera is used. The Free plan is $0 for 3 users, 1 yard and 100 gate events a month with 30 days of history. No card.

Start free