Guide

Detention pay: rates, free time, and the loads nobody billed

Detention is the easiest money a fleet leaves on the table. The truck sat, the ELD recorded it, the rate con allows for it, and the invoice went out without it. Here is how it works and how to stop losing it.

By Djuro Kolundzija, founder of Nerivo. Started his own trucking company in 2012 and grew it past 100 trucks.

What detention pay is

Detention pay is the hourly charge a carrier bills when a truck is held at a shipper or receiver beyond the agreed free time. It exists because a truck at a dock is a truck not earning. The right to bill it, the free time, the hourly rate and any conditions come from the rate confirmation, so detention starts with reading the rate con before the load, not after.

The usual terms in 2026

Free time: 2 hours for live load or unload. Less for drop-and-hook; sometimes 3–4 hours at large shippers.
Rate: $50–$100 per hour, $75 most common, billed per hour or part of an hour after free time.
Conditions: notify the broker before free time expires; arrive on time; provide in/out times. Miss one and the broker has a reason to deny.
Caps: some rate cons cap detention per day or per load.

How to bill it so it gets paid

Record arrival and departure. The ELD does this already: the truck entered the geofence at 9:02 and left at 13:12. That is 4 hours 10 minutes on site; with 2 hours free, 2 hours 10 minutes of detention, billed as 3 hours at $75 = $225 (or $162.50 if the rate con pro-rates).
Notify in time. A text or email to the broker before the two hours are up, with the arrival time. Keep it; it is the condition brokers deny on most often.
Get the paperwork. In and out times on the bill of lading, signed. If the receiver will not sign, the ELD record and the notification email still stand.
Add the line to the invoice. A separate detention line with the hours and rate, referencing the rate con. Attach the ELD geofence report.

Why it goes unbilled

Three hand-offs. The driver has to say the truck waited. Dispatch has to write it down. Billing has to add the line. On a busy week any one of them misses it, and nobody notices because the invoice still looks right; it just has no detention on it.

The numbers are not small. On a 50-truck sample fleet, 625 loads in one quarter were held past free time and had no detention line on the invoice: $57,863 for the quarter. Four brokers accounted for two thirds of it, which usually means those brokers’ rate cons have conditions the office was not tracking.

How to find the loads you did not bill

The ELD knows every stop longer than free time. The TMS knows every invoice. Put them side by side by load number and the unbilled loads fall out: dock time past free time, no detention line. Doing that by hand means exporting stops from the ELD, invoices from the TMS, and matching them in a spreadsheet once a month, after the dispute window has closed on half of them.

Nerivo runs this check every week: it reads stops from Motive, Samsara or Geotab, the rate confirmation terms and the invoice from the TMS, matches them to the load, and lists each unbilled load with the ELD times, the free time, the rate, the dollar amount and a draft email to the broker. See what else Nerivo checks.

Frequently asked questions

What is detention pay in trucking?

Detention pay is the fee a carrier charges when a truck is held at a shipper or receiver beyond the free time agreed in the rate confirmation, usually two hours. It compensates for the hours the truck and driver could not be earning. It is billed per hour, or part of an hour, after free time ends.

How much is detention pay per hour?

Most rate confirmations set $50 to $100 per hour after free time, with $75 the most common figure in 2026. Some brokers cap it at a daily maximum, and some pay nothing unless the driver reported the delay before free time ran out. The rate and the conditions are whatever the rate con says, so read it before the truck arrives.

How long is free time?

Two hours is standard for live loads and unloads. Drop-and-hook is often less, and some shippers negotiate three or four hours. Free time starts at the appointment time or at arrival, whichever is later, unless the rate con says otherwise.

How do I prove detention time?

ELD location and duty status records show when the truck arrived at the facility and when it left, to the minute. Pair that with the appointment time on the rate con and the bill of lading in-and-out stamps. A geofence report from Motive, Samsara or Geotab is the cleanest evidence because it is generated by a third-party system, not written by hand.

Why does detention go unbilled?

Because three people have to notice. The driver has to report the wait, dispatch has to record it, and billing has to add a line to the invoice. On a busy week any one of them misses it. On a 50-truck sample fleet, 625 loads in one quarter were held past free time with no detention line on the invoice, $57,863 in total, or roughly $90 a load.

Can I bill detention after the invoice has gone out?

Usually, if you are within the broker’s dispute window and you have the ELD evidence; most brokers accept a corrected invoice within 30 days. After that it gets harder. The better answer is to find the unbilled loads every week, while the dispute window is still open.

Does detention pay go to the driver?

That is a company decision. Many fleets pass a share to the driver, which also makes drivers more likely to report the wait. Either way, the carrier has to bill it first, which is the step that gets missed.

Nerivo IQ

Find the detention you did not bill, every week, with the ELD times to prove it.

Connect your ELD and TMS once. Nerivo matches every stop to its load and invoice, flags dock time past free time with no detention line, and gives you the amount, the records and the email to send. For fleets of 50+ trucks.

Get a fleet check