Glossary
Terms & Glossaries of Shipping and Trading
Variable Cost
Variable cost is costs that vary directly with the level of activity within a short time. Examples include costs of moving cargo inland on trains or trucks, stevedoring in some ports, and short-term equipment leases.
A variable cost is a corporate expense that changes in proportion to how much a company produces or sells. Variable costs increase or decrease depending on a company's production or sales volume—they rise as production increases and fall as production decreases.
