How long does sea freight from China take?

Transit time is the number buyers ask about first, and the one most often quoted without the caveats that come with it. A range is more useful than a single figure, because a sailing can lose days to congestion, paperwork or weather without anything going wrong.

Typical transit times by destination

These are the ranges we publish for cargo moving from China on our own routes:

• United States: 25 to 35 days by sea, 7 to 10 days by air
• Canada: 28 to 38 days by sea, 10 to 15 days by air
• United Kingdom: 30 to 35 days by sea, 10 to 15 days by air
• European Union: 28 to 40 days by sea, 10 to 15 days by air
• Australia: 15 to 25 days by sea, 10 to 15 days by air
• South Africa: 22 to 30 days by sea, 12 to 18 days by air
• Japan: 7 to 10 days by sea, 5 to 7 days by air
• UAE and the Middle East: 18 to 25 days by sea, 8 to 15 days by air

Read those as time on the water and at the port. Door-to-door delivery adds customs clearance and inland transport on top, which usually means several more days and can mean a couple of weeks when documents need correcting or the destination is far from the port.

What adds days to a sailing

• Port congestion at either end, which delays both loading and discharge
• Blank sailings, where a carrier cancels a departure and cargo is rolled to the next vessel
• A customs examination, which holds the container while it is inspected
• Documents that disagree with each other, such as a weight that does not match the packing list
• Peak season, when terminals are busiest and vessels wait for a berth
• Routing through a transshipment port, which adds a second loading and discharge cycle

Port to port is not door to door

A ship arriving at Los Angeles or Felixstowe does not mean your goods arrive at your warehouse. Clearance, duty payment and inland trucking still have to happen, and each has its own queue. On a busy week, getting from the quay to a delivery address several hundred kilometres inland can take longer than anyone expects.

This is why we quote door to door when a customer asks for a delivery date. The port-to-port figure is useful for comparing carriers. The door-to-door figure is the one to plan your stock around.

Chinese New Year and the autumn peak

Two periods change everything. Before Chinese New Year, factories push out a month of orders in a few weeks and the ports fill up. In the autumn, carriers move seasonal stock for Western retailers and space becomes tight again.

If your cargo needs to arrive before a fixed date, book earlier than feels necessary. Restocking after a stockout costs more than a week of storage.

How to check where your cargo is

Ask for the container number and the bill of lading number when the cargo leaves, not when you start to worry. With those two references you can follow the vessel yourself, and you can tell whether a delay is at sea, at the terminal or in clearance.

Getting an estimate for your own cargo

Send us the cargo details, the supplier address and the delivery address, and we will give you a door-to-door estimate with the transit time for that specific route. Reach us at [email protected] or +86 152 6732 4109.