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Vessel dwell

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US average vessel dwell at berth

The archived national average time a container ship sits at a US berth, AIS-derived, in hours

Data through Jun 2023 · source last checked Sep 1, 2026 · page revised Aug 18, 2026

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About this data
Source
BTS Monthly Average Container Vessel Dwell Times, top 25 US ports
Series
National average time a container ship sits at berth
Basis
Ship at berth, AIS-derived, not box or terminal dwell
Geography
National, top 25 US ports
Unit
hours
Calculation
Monthly average
Last observation
Jun 2023
Update frequency
Monthly, archived series paused since mid-2023

Vessel dwell at berth is a SHIP metric: how long a container ship sits at the berth, AIS-derived, averaged across the top-25 US ports. It peaked at 37 hrs in May 2022 during the 2021 to 2022 congestion, and last reported 27 hrs for June 2023, when BTS paused the series. It is not container (box) dwell on the terminal, and not the ship queue. For the live picture, see the ship queue and the truck planning-time index; for the live complement on container dwell specifically, see the Los Angeles import-container dwell page below.

Vessel dwell at berth across the top-25 US ports last reported 27 hours in June 2023, when the Bureau of Transportation Statistics paused the series.

BTS series, archived: last datapoint June 2023. Month-over-month gaps don't exist in this series (it never had one); YoY compares each month to the nearest reading ~12 months earlier, so 2019 reads n/a.
MonthAvg hours at berthYoY
January 201929 hrsn/a
February 201931 hrsn/a
March 201928 hrsn/a
April 201928 hrsn/a
May 201928 hrsn/a
June 201927 hrsn/a
July 201928 hrsn/a
August 201928 hrsn/a
September 201928 hrsn/a
October 201927 hrsn/a
November 201927 hrsn/a
December 201928 hrsn/a
January 202029 hrs0.0%
February 202027 hrs-12.9%
March 202027 hrs-3.6%
April 202028 hrs0.0%
May 202026 hrs-7.1%
June 202027 hrs0.0%
July 202028 hrs0.0%
August 202028 hrs0.0%
September 202029 hrs+3.6%
October 202030 hrs+11.1%
November 202030 hrs+11.1%
December 202029 hrs+3.6%
January 202131 hrs+6.9%
February 202132 hrs+18.5%
March 202131 hrs+14.8%
April 202133 hrs+17.9%
May 202132 hrs+23.1%
June 202130 hrs+11.1%
July 202133 hrs+17.9%
August 202133 hrs+17.9%
September 202132 hrs+10.3%
October 202133 hrs+10.0%
November 202132 hrs+6.7%
December 202133 hrs+13.8%
January 202235 hrs+12.9%
February 202236 hrs+12.5%
March 202234 hrs+9.7%
April 202236 hrs+9.1%
May 202237 hrs+15.6%
June 202235 hrs+16.7%
July 202235 hrs+6.1%
August 202236 hrs+9.1%
September 202235 hrs+9.4%
October 202232 hrs-3.0%
November 202233 hrs+3.1%
December 202231 hrs-6.1%
January 202330 hrs-14.3%
February 202329 hrs-19.4%
March 202328 hrs-17.6%
April 202328 hrs-22.2%
May 202329 hrs-21.6%
June 202327 hrs-22.9%

Previous weeks

Week of Aug 13, 2026

US average vessel dwell at berth last reported 27 hours in June 2023, when the Bureau of Transportation Statistics paused the series. The metric peaked at 37 hours in May 2022 during the 2021 to 2022 congestion.

About US average vessel dwell at berth

This is the classic port-dwell number from the pandemic congestion crisis: the monthly average time a container ship sat stationary at a US top-25-port berth, derived from AIS ship-position data by BTS. It is a national aggregate, not a per-port number, and it is a ship metric, not a measure of how long a container then sits in the yard. BTS reported it from January 2019 through June 2023 and has not updated it since; we checked again on 2026-08-13 and the underlying dataset still has no row past June 2023, so this page stays a labeled historical reference, never a current reading. The metric-precision distinction it teaches, vessel dwell versus box dwell versus the ship queue, is the whole point of this site.

This series has no live successor on this site, but a related live number does exist: the Los Angeles import-container dwell page publishes a DAILY, current read on how long import boxes are sitting on Port of Los Angeles terminals today, split by dwell-age bucket. It is not the same metric (that page counts BOXES on the terminal by how long they have dwelt; this page averages how long SHIPS sat at berth, nationally, through mid-2023), but it is the closest thing this site publishes to a live picture of container dwell, and the one to read for a current sense of how long boxes are sitting rather than how ships once did.