As the third-largest port complex in the US and the largest port complex on the US East Coast, the Port of New York and New Jersey (NY-NJ Port) serves as an important gateway to one of the most affluent consumer markets in North America. During the pandemic, it has handled a record volume of containers.

Since January, the NY-NJ Port has been confronting a severe container imbalance, with over 200,000 containers sitting at the port, resulting in worse delays in the US supply chain. It has to process record import volumes with the empty containers waiting and accumulating. Port officials were eager to solve the problem by imposing a container imbalance fee. In this way could the evacuation of containers be accelerated.

At the beginning of August, the NY-NJ Port decided that a new container imbalance fee it had planned for September 1 would apply to both loaded and empty containers considered long-dwelling. But recently, the port authority has changed its original idea. The implementation of this fee would not be effective until the fourth quarter of this year. The port also noted that it had encouraged ocean carriers to expedite container removal.

Under the rules set by the NY-NJ Port, the total out-going container volume has to equal or exceed 110% of the incoming container volume, or ocean carriers would face a container imbalance fee of 100 USD per container charged on a quarterly basis. A number of carriers reacted by making plans to move containers out, with the hope of restoring fluidity to the port.