Maersk slaps $600 peak surcharge on reefers into Tema

Maersk will charge US$600 per 40-foot reefer container shipped from the Far East, Middle East and Americas into Tema, Ghana, under a new Peak Season Surcharge that takes effect on 16 November 2026. Twenty-foot reefer units pay US$300. The carrier says the surcharge stays in place until further notice.

For regulated countries, the start date shifts to 1 December 2026 — a two-week grace period that matters for importers in jurisdictions where tariff changes need notice or filing before they bite.

The full rate card reads simply:

• Origin: Far East, Middle East and Americas
• Destination: Tema, Ghana
• 20-foot reefer: US$300
• 40-foot reefer: US$600

Tema is Ghana's main container gateway and the landing point for the country's heavy reefer imports — produce distribution, frozen protein, pharma-adjacent cold chain — so a flat peak-season fee lands squarely on West Africa-bound cold chain volumes from three origin regions at once.

How Maersk will calculate the rate

The mechanism sits in the Price Calculation Date, and it works differently depending on the booking type and trade.

For non-SPOT bookings on non-FMC shipments, Maersk fixes the rate using the PCD defined as the scheduled departure date of the first water leg at booking confirmation. In plain terms: the date the first vessel in the chain is scheduled to sail when you confirm the booking. That's the date that decides whether the surcharge applies.

For FMC-governed shipments — those falling under US regulation — the PCD is instead the final container gate-in date. So for US-origin cargo, shippers control the trigger by when they gate the box in, not by when the ship sails.

The surcharge does not apply to SPOT bookings at all. Spot shippers escape it; contract and standard-booking shippers do not.

Maersk will collect the charge according to the freight payment terms on the booking. The carrier also flags that other local and contingency surcharges may stack on top, so the $300/$600 figures are a floor, not the full landed add-on.

What does this change for shippers?

For reefer importers routing through Tema, the practical question is timing. Confirming a booking before the November dates locks the calculation to an earlier PCD; waiting pushes cargo into the surcharge window. US-based shippers on FMC terms have an extra lever — gate-in timing — but that lever cuts both ways: a late gate-in drops the box straight into the charge.

For forwarders, the split between SPOT and non-SPOT bookings now carries a $300–$600 per container cost difference on this trade, which will feed into routing decisions and quote comparisons on Far East–West Africa and Americas–West Africa reefer lanes.

The open-ended wording — until further notice — signals Maersk has left itself room to withdraw the charge when peak-season pressure on Tema reefer capacity eases, or to extend it if demand holds.