Shipping and logistics from China

The physical chain from factory to door

Every shipment from China passes through the same sequence of handoffs, whoever arranges them. Goods leave the factory by truck, clear Chinese export formalities, and are loaded at an origin port or airport. They cross the Pacific by sea or air, arrive at a US gateway, clear US customs in the name of an importer of record, and travel inland to a warehouse or customer. Each handoff is a point where cost is incurred, where risk of loss can pass from one party to another, and where documents must match.

The origin ports are among the largest in the world. China's Ministry of Transport reports that Chinese ports handled 354.47 million TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units, the standard container measure) in 2025. Shanghai handled 55.06 million TEU and Ningbo-Zhoushan 43.87 million, followed by Shenzhen at 35.41 million, Qingdao, Guangzhou and Tianjin. Those are port-wide totals including domestic and transshipment boxes, not China-to-US volumes. On the US side, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics counted 45.7 million loaded TEU across 110 ports in 2022, with New York/New Jersey, Los Angeles and Long Beach the three largest; those figures cover all origins.

What the importer controls is not the ship but the contract: who books each leg, who pays, when risk passes, and who files the US entry. The rest of this section covers those choices.

Incoterms: where cost and risk change hands

Incoterms are trade terms published by the International Chamber of Commerce, which describes them as "a set of eleven three-letter trade terms" for business-to-business sales of goods; the current edition is Incoterms 2020. The rules fall into two families. Seven work for any mode of transport: EXW, FCA, CPT, CIP, DAP, DPU and DDP. Four are for sea and inland waterway transport only: FAS, FOB, CFR and CIF.

The essential mechanic is the delivery point, because risk passes there. Under EXW (Ex Works, goods made available at the seller's premises) risk "transfers before the transport cycle even starts." Under FOB, CFR and CIF it passes when goods are placed on board the vessel at the port of loading. Under DAP, DPU and DDP it passes at the named destination. In the C rules the seller pays for main carriage beyond the point where risk has already passed to the buyer, which is the single most misunderstood feature of CIF.

The ICC's own introduction warns against two common China habits. It notes that EXW "may cause problems" with loading and export clearance and that a seller "would be better advised to sell under the FCA rule." It also advises FCA rather than FOB where containerized goods are handed to a carrier before loading onto the ship, which describes most container shipments from Chinese factories. Just as important is what Incoterms do not cover: the ICC lists transfer of title, the method and currency of payment, remedies for breach and "the imposition of tariffs" among the matters left to the sales contract.

One customs point connects the trade term to the duty bill. US customs value is transaction value, which excludes international freight and insurance, so a CIF price does not raise the dutiable value if the freight element is identified.

DDP and the importer of record

Under DDP (Delivered Duty Paid) the seller undertakes to clear the goods for import and pay the duties. That makes the seller, or a party it appoints, the importer of record (IOR): the entry is filed in its name and number, and it answers to CBP for duties and for the accuracy of the entry. The ICC itself cautions that DDP obliges a seller to perform acts inside the buyer's country that may be "physically or legally difficult," and suggests DAP or DPU instead.

US enforcement in 2026 has focused on exactly this arrangement. CBP's notice on the accuracy of importer-of-record data, enforced from 18 September 2026, requires the IOR's address to be its actual business location, not a registered agent, broker or forwarder, and allows CBP to void an IOR number whose data are inaccurate. Executive Order 14411 of 3 June 2026 directs CBP to bar foreign IORs from filing informal entries and to require domestic assets or bonding from importers. A DOJ and DHS trade fraud task force reported more than $1 billion in recoveries, penalties and publicly charged losses by 14 July 2026, a figure that includes losses charged but not proven.

The practical consequence for a buyer is that a DDP quote shifts compliance risk onto a party the buyer may not be able to see. If goods are seized or duties are later reassessed, the buyer's inventory is still the goods in question. And when duties are refunded, as IEEPA duties were in 2026, the refund goes to the importer of record, not to the buyer who paid a DDP price.

Ocean freight: containers, consolidators and NVOCCs

Ocean shipments move either as FCL (full container load, one shipper's cargo in a sealed container) or LCL (less than container load, cargo consolidated with other shippers' goods at a container freight station and separated again at destination). No government or institutional source gives a cargo volume at which FCL becomes cheaper than LCL; the rules of thumb circulating online are forwarder practice, not data.

The regulatory map matters more than most buyers expect. The Federal Maritime Commission licenses ocean transportation intermediaries under 46 CFR Part 515, and its definitions are specific. An "ocean freight forwarder" in FMC terms dispatches shipments from the United States. For imports from China, the relevant status is usually NVOCC (non-vessel-operating common carrier), defined as "a common carrier that does not operate the vessels by which the ocean transportation is provided." A US-based NVOCC must be licensed; a foreign NVOCC may register instead. Financial responsibility is fixed by regulation (46 CFR 515.21): $75,000 for a US NVOCC and $150,000 for a registered foreign NVOCC, as of October 2026. Every NVOCC operating in US trades must publish a tariff of its rates and rules.

The contract chain follows from those definitions. The importer holds the NVOCC's house bill of lading; the NVOCC holds the ocean carrier's master bill. The importer's claim rights run against the NVOCC. A customs broker is a separate license issued by CBP, not the FMC, and must execute its power of attorney directly with the importer. Ocean cargo also triggers the Importer Security Filing, due no later than 24 hours before lading at the Chinese port.

Air freight and express

Air shipments are a different product, not only a faster one. Only the seven "any mode" Incoterms fit air cargo; the ICC calls an FOB contract at an inland point such as an airport one that "makes little sense." Air freight is billed on chargeable weight, the greater of actual weight and a volumetric weight; the divisor most carriers use is widely cited but its primary source was not confirmed in the desk's research, so quotes should state the divisor applied.

Two channels are often confused. Integrator express networks move parcels door to door and usually arrange customs entry. General air cargo booked through a forwarder moves airport to airport on an air waybill, with customs clearance and trucking arranged separately. Since the end of de minimis, both channels require a customs entry for goods from China. Lithium batteries are regulated as dangerous goods in air transport, which restricts how products containing them can be shipped.

Transit time has no official number

No official source publishes a single China-to-US transit time. Port-to-port times come from each carrier's published service schedules and change with service rotations, canal conditions, blank sailings and congestion; any day count should be read as a dated, hedged range.

The structure is stable even when the numbers are not. Services to the US West Coast (Los Angeles and Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle and Tacoma) make the direct trans-Pacific crossing, the shortest ocean leg, and feed inland points by rail. All-water services to the East and Gulf Coasts run through the Panama Canal or, westbound, through the Suez Canal. UNCTAD reports that rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope added approximately 30% to voyage lengths on affected routes in 2024, and that over 80 trans-Pacific blank sailings (scheduled calls a carrier cancels) were reported in April 2025 after US tariff announcements. A blank sailing usually pushes cargo to the next vessel.

Policy can affect the vessel side as well. USTR's Section 301 maritime action imposed fees on vessels owned, operated or built in China from 14 October 2025; the fees fall on vessel operators rather than importers, were suspended from 10 November 2025, and, as of 30 October 2026, USTR had proposed extending the suspension to 9 January 2027.

Chinese New Year and the production calendar

The largest scheduling risk in China sourcing is set by the calendar, not by freight. The State Council fixed the 2026 Spring Festival public holiday at nine days, 15 to 23 February 2026, with make-up working days on Saturday 14 February and Saturday 28 February. The 2027 notice had not been issued as of 30 October 2026; Lunar New Year's Day 2027 falls on 6 February 2027 by the lunar calendar, but the official holiday window is not yet set.

The official holiday understates the disruption. Factories commonly close longer than the public holiday because migrant workers travel home before it and return after it. No government statistic measures closure length or post-holiday labor return, so production plans should treat the weeks around the holiday as a period of reduced and uncertain capacity, with orders placed and inspected well before it. The National Day holiday, 1 to 7 October in 2026, is a second, shorter pause.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

• Ministry of Transport of the People's Republic of China — 2025年港口货物、集装箱吞吐量 (2026, PDF)
• Federal Maritime Commission (eCFR) — 46 CFR 515.21, Financial responsibility requirements (2026, HTML-official)
• UNCTAD (data: S&P Global Port Performance Program, May 2025) — Review of Maritime Transport 2025, Table IV.1 (2025, PDF)
• General Office of the State Council of the PRC — 国务院办公厅关于2026年部分节假日安排的通知 (国办发明电〔2025〕7号) (2025, HTML-official)
• Office of the US Trade Representative (Federal Register) — Request for Comments on Further Suspension of Section 301 Action: China's Targeting of th… (2026, HTML-official)
• iccwbo.org/business-solutions/incoterms-rules/incoterms-2020/
• 2go.iccwbo.org/incoterms-2020-introduction-free-document-pdf.html
• federalregister.gov/documents/2026/08/19/2026-16911/accuracy-of-importer-of-…