Container Receiving: What Happens After the Box Lands

When your container comes off the Antillean Line vessel in Nassau, it feels like the finish line. It is not. Arrival starts a clock: free days are counting down, documents have to clear, and the box still has to be pulled, hauled, and emptied before a single pallet reaches your floor. Miss a step and demurrage starts eating the margin you worked to protect. This is the part of the job importers rarely see, so here is the honest version of what happens after the box lands — and where the real decisions and costs sit.

Step one: documents before you touch the box

Nothing moves off the terminal until documentation is released and Customs is cleared. Documentation release is mandatory on every shipment, prepaid or collect, and is issued only against cleared funds and an original or telex-released Bill of Lading. That release runs $181.50 per BOL per container (VAT included). If your cargo is moving between islands, a Transire at $125 is required on top of that. On the brokerage side, cost is tiered by origin because the paperwork is heavier for some lanes than others — get the entry filed early, because the sooner it is in, the sooner the box is free to leave the port.

• Brokerage on US-origin cargo: $75 for the first line item, $10 each additional
• Brokerage on non-US origin (Europe, China, UK, other): $125 first line, $10 each additional
• Government duties, VAT, and OGA permit fees are passed through at cost — they are not our markup
• We run our own brokerage in-house, so the entry and the truck are coordinated by the same team

Step two: the clock you can't ignore

Every container arriving under Antillean carries free days — the window to unload and return the box before demurrage kicks in. Know your number before the vessel arrives, because the cheapest day of storage is the one you never pay for. The pattern is the same across every container type: the first tier is manageable, the second is not. A reefer sitting nine days past its free time is a very different invoice than a dry box, so reefers and flat racks get scheduled first.

• Dry 20ft / 40ft: 7 free days, then $37/day (days 8–15), then $150/day (day 16+)
• Reefer: 4 free days, then $80/day (days 5–9), then $200/day (day 10+)
• Flat rack: 3 free days, then $45/day (days 4–11), then $160/day (day 12+)
• Reefer plug-in is separate — after arrival plus one free day, it runs $70/day

Step three: pulling the box, emptying it, and counting it

Once the entry clears, we dray the container with our own trailer head and chassis — no waiting on a subcontractor. Drayage within New Providence is $250 per container port-to-consignee; addresses further out on the island (Western District, Coral Harbour, Lyford Cay and the like) run $300. Then the box has to be emptied, and you have a genuine choice in where. Destuffing at Gladstone Freight Terminal is $750 per container. Drayed to our Verizon Business Park warehouse in Nassau instead, a full container-receiving service is $500 — and that price includes the destuff, the piece count, and putaway up to 20 pallets. That count matters: every load is reconciled against what your paperwork says should be there, which is where shortages and damage get caught while it still counts.

Step four: stored, tracked, and off your mind

Once received, your goods sit on our racks, and storage accrues from the arrival date, not from whenever you get around to collecting — so plan your pickups. Standard pallet storage is $30 per pallet per month, pro-rated by half-month, dropping to $25 for high-volume accounts (50+ pallets on a 12-month commitment). Everything inbound is tracked in Hammerhead TMS, so you can see what landed and what is still on the rack, and last-mile delivery off that rack — from a single pallet to a full Family Islands run — is booked the same way.

The through-line on all of it: a container landing is the start of a process, not the end. Documents clear, free days count down, the box gets pulled and emptied, the count gets reconciled, and only then are your goods truly received. Know your free days, get your entry filed early, and pick the destuff option that fits your cargo — do those three things and receiving stops being a scramble. Send your BOL and packing list to documents@clxnow.com before the vessel arrives and we'll have the clock handled before it starts.