Detention & Accessorial Calculator
What does a held truck actually cost? Enter when the driver checked in and out, your free time and hourly rate, and this bills the wait in whole hours (rounded up), applies an optional daily cap, and adds any flat accessorial fees — liftgate, residential, redelivery — for the total owed.
When the driver checked in at the dock.
When the driver was released.
Time included before detention starts. Often 2 for LTL.
Your agreed charge for each billable hour.
The most detention can bill for this visit. Leave blank if your contract has no cap. The cap limits detention only — accessorials add on top.
Accessorial fees
Optional · flat add-ons
Detention owed
How detention is billed
Detention is the charge for holding a truck at a dock past the free time both sides agreed to — commonly two hours for LTL, and often longer for a full truckload. The math is simple in shape: take the total time on site, subtract the free time, and bill whatever is left by the hour. The catch that trips people up is the rounding. Detention almost always bills in whole hours, rounded up: two hours and one minute past free time is three billable hours, not two. This tool rounds up by default because that’s the convention on most rate agreements.
Many contracts also put a cap on detention — a maximum it can bill for a single visit, no matter how long the wait runs. Enter that cap and the tool clamps the detention charge to it. A cap limits detention only; flat accessorial fees are separate and still add on top.
Free time is a courtesy window, not a target. The clock past it is money — and it rounds the driver’s way, up to the next full hour.
A worked example
A driver checks in at 08:00 and is released at 12:15 — 4 hours 15 minutes on site. With 2 hours of free time, that’s 2 h 15 m past free time. Rounded up, detention bills 3 hours. At $75/hour that’s $225. Add a $75 liftgate accessorial and the invoice total is $300. If the rate agreement capped detention at $150, the detention line would drop to $150 — but the liftgate still stands, for a $225 total.
Detention vs. accessorial charges
The two often ride on the same invoice but they aren’t the same thing. Detention is time-based — it grows with the wait. Accessorials are flat fees for services outside a plain dock-to-dock move. Common ones:
| Accessorial | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Liftgate | No dock — the trailer’s own hydraulic gate is used to lower freight to ground level. |
| Residential / limited access | Delivery to a home, farm, jobsite, or other non-commercial location. |
| Redelivery | A second delivery attempt after a missed or refused appointment. |
| Reconsignment | Diverting the shipment to a new address in transit. |
| Inside delivery | Carrying freight past the threshold instead of leaving it at the dock or curb. |
Add each flat fee as its own line above and it rolls into the total owed alongside the detention charge.
Where this stops being enough
This is a quick billing check, not your rate agreement. Real contracts vary: some prorate detention by the quarter-hour instead of rounding up, some start free time at the appointment rather than at check-in, and drayage or truckload detention is often quoted per day rather than per hour. Enter the numbers your agreement actually uses, and when a customer disputes a charge, the check-in and check-out times on the signed delivery receipt are what settle it.