Maersk strips Finnish port dues out of inland haulage rates

From 1 October 2026, Maersk will stop including Arex charges and port dues in its inland haulage rates for import and export shipments in Finland, moving both cost items into "subject to" charges listed separately in its terms and conditions.

That single sentence carries real arithmetic consequences for Finnish shippers. A quoted inland transport rate that looks like an all-in price today will, from October, arrive with two line items excluded. Customers will need to add Arex charges and port dues on top before they can see the true cost of moving a container between a Finnish port and its inland destination.

Maersk frames the change as a competitiveness play. According to the carrier, the revised structure is intended to make its inland offers more directly comparable with other options available in the Finnish market — a signal that rivals in Finland quote haulage without embedded port-side charges, and that Maersk's bundled rate has been losing bids on optics alone.

What changes on 1 October 2026?

The mechanics are straightforward, and shippers should note each element:

• Arex charges and port dues are removed from Maersk's inland haulage rates for Finnish import and export shipments.
• Both become "subject to" charges, listed in the carrier's terms and conditions rather than inside the quoted rate.
• Customers must budget for them separately when reviewing the total cost of an inland transport quotation.
• The change applies to all new quotations, tenders and updated rates issued from the effective date.
• Maersk's online rates will be adjusted accordingly, so digital bookings will reflect the same unbundled structure.

Existing contracts are not addressed in the carrier's announcement — a gap worth flagging. Shippers with long-term inland arrangements in Finland should confirm with their Maersk account teams whether and when their rates migrate to the new structure.

Why unbundle now?

The carrier's stated logic rests on comparability. When port dues and Arex charges sit inside a haulage rate, the headline number inflates relative to competitors who quote them separately. On a tender sheet, the bundled carrier can look more expensive even when the total landed cost is identical. Pulling the charges out puts Maersk's inland quotes on the same visible footing as the rest of the Finnish market.

There is a second, unstated dimension worth weighing. Port dues and terminal-linked charges are costs carriers pass through but do not control. Excluding them from the quoted rate shifts the visibility of those fluctuating cost components onto the customer's side of the ledger. If port-side charges rise in Finland, the movement shows up as a separate "subject to" item rather than as pressure on Maersk's haulage rate — a cleaner position for the carrier, more homework for the shipper.

What should shippers and forwarders do?

The practical burden lands on procurement teams. From 1 October 2026, any Maersk inland quotation for Finland arrives structurally incomplete until the customer prices in the excluded charges. The disciplined response is to normalise total cost comparisons: rebuild every quote — Maersk's and its competitors' — into a fully loaded figure including Arex charges and port dues before awarding business.

Tender teams face a related task. Because the revised structure governs all new quotations, tenders and updated rates issued from the effective date, tenders launched across that boundary will contain quotes built on two different bases. Documentation should record which structure each bid uses.

Forwarders booking through Maersk's online channels should verify that the adjusted digital rates display the excluded charges transparently enough to build accurate customer quotations of their own.

A caveat before the savings claim

Maersk says the change makes its inland offers more competitive. That is a claim about presentation, not price: the port dues and Arex charges still exist, and somebody still pays them. What genuinely changes is where the costs appear and who has to chase them down. Finnish shippers will only know whether comparability translates into better deals when the first tenders under the new structure close.

Watch the Finnish inland market from October 2026 onward: if the unbundling triggers matching rate transparency across competitors, the real benchmark for haulage value in Finland will finally be visible.