Who's actually responsible for paying demurrage and detention?

The short answer: it's contractual, not a fixed federal list

There is no current FMC rule that says “the carrier must bill the consignee” or “the shipper is always liable.” Who owes a demurrage or detention charge is set by the bill of lading, service contract, or tariff terms governing that shipment — the party who contracted for carriage, and any party the terms make jointly liable, can end up being the billed party. In practice that is most often the consignee or the NVOCC/freight forwarder acting on the shipper's behalf, but it varies by contract.

What federal regulation does require is narrower and more useful in a dispute: 46 CFR § 541.6(a)(4) says a demurrage or detention invoice must state “the basis for why the billed party is the proper party of interest and thus liable for the charge.” The billing party has to show its work — not just name someone and expect payment.

Why old articles get this wrong: § 541.4 was vacated

When the FMC's demurrage and detention billing rule took effect in 2024, it included § 541.4, which restricted who could be named as the billed party. A lot of guidance written between 2024 and 2025 cites that section directly. It no longer applies: in World Shipping Council v. FMC (D.C. Cir., Sept. 23, 2025), the court set aside § 541.4, and the FMC formally removed it from the Code of Federal Regulations effective December 29, 2025. The current eCFR text of § 541.4 reads simply “[Reserved]” — there is no replacement provision restricting who can be billed.

The rest of Part 541 — the invoice-content rule (§ 541.6), the consequence for a non-compliant invoice (§ 541.5), the 30-day issuance and dispute-response windows (§§ 541.7–541.8) — was not touched by that decision and remains fully in force. If a source tells you the FMC dictates who can be billed, it's citing a rule that no longer exists.

What to check when you get billed

• Does the invoice explain why you're liable? Under § 541.6(a)(4), it must. If it just lists a dollar amount with no stated basis for treating you as the proper party of interest, that's a missing required field — and under § 541.5, missing required information “eliminates any obligation of the billed party to pay the applicable charge.”
• Were you billed by the correct link in the chain? An NVOCC that passes a charge downstream is both a billed party (to the ocean carrier) and a billing party (to its own customer) for the same charge — § 541.7(c) lets it dispute upstream on notice of a downstream dispute. Check your contract with your forwarder or NVOCC for who's actually on the hook for what, since that allocation is theirs, not the FMC's.
• Was the wrong party billed first? § 541.7(d) allows a billing party to reissue to the correct billed party, but only within 30 calendar days of the charge being last incurred — after that window, the original billed party owes nothing and a late correction doesn't revive it.
• Is the underlying charge itself reasonable? Separately from who's billed, § 545.5 says demurrage and detention exist to incentivize cargo/equipment fluidity — the FMC considers practices that charge for delays outside your control (for example, detention when empty containers cannot be returned) “likely to be found unreasonable” absent extenuating circumstances.

Practical takeaway

Don't assume liability is fixed by role (“consignees always pay,” “shippers are never on the hook”). Read the bill of lading and service contract terms for your specific shipment, and hold the invoice to § 541.6(a)(4): it has to state the basis for billing you, not just bill you. If it doesn't, that's a concrete, citable dispute ground before you even get to whether the underlying charge is calculated correctly.