A terminal handling charge, or THC, is the fee for moving a container between the quay and the yard: lifting it on or off the vessel and handling it inside the terminal. It is billed at both ends, origin THC at the load port and destination THC at the discharge port.
Terminals charge carriers for stevedoring and yard moves; carriers pass this on to shippers as THC, either inside the ocean freight or as a separate surcharge line. Whether THC is prepaid or collect follows the commercial terms of the shipment, and the Incoterm decides which party ultimately bears it.
THC levels differ widely by port and are quoted per container size and type. For LCL shipments the equivalent handling appears at the container freight station as CFS charges instead.
THC itself is not an event, but the moves it pays for are: the load and discharge lifts you see in a container’s timeline are the moments THC covers. When reconciling an invoice against a tracked shipment in TrackingMCP, the load event at origin and discharge event at destination confirm the handling actually happened at those terminals; port context lives on pages like Singapore and Rotterdam.
Free days, daily rates, and billing rules vary by carrier, terminal, port, and contract. Treat this page as orientation and confirm specifics against your own agreement and the applicable tariff before acting on an invoice.
A terminal handling charge, or THC, is the fee for moving a container between the quay and the yard: lifting it on or off the vessel and handling it inside the terminal. It is billed at both ends, origin THC at the load port and destination THC at the discharge port.
Sometimes. Quotes may be all-in or split freight and local charges. Ask whether origin and destination THC are included, because the split changes who pays what under the agreed Incoterm.
It reflects local stevedoring costs, terminal pricing, and currency. High-cost ports bill materially more per lift than low-cost ones, and carriers publish differing THC tariffs per country.
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