Landside Port Charges Index – January 2025 Update

While the New Year presents an opportunity to ‘start afresh’, challenges will continue for many businesses that rely on Australia’s container freight supply chain. 

From our recent update of our Landside Port Charges Index, we found that Landside port charges across Australia’s capital cities have continued to grow, with container terminal access charges increasing by a national average of 21% over the previous year. Stevedore ancillary and penalty charges increased by 26% and 37% respectively while empty container park access charges increased by 17% across Australia. 

Following amendments to the Victorian Voluntary Pricing Protocol by the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning (DTP) last year, the three Victorian-based container terminals have aligned their landside pricing tariffs to commence from 1 January each year. Patrick Terminals and DP World Australia have also adopted these protocols for their terminals in Sydney, Brisbane and Fremantle. 

Notices of price increases were issued by the three stevedores in late 2024, and increases came into effect on 1 January 2025. In summary, for the stevedores who have increased their charges, Terminal Access Charges have increased by an average of 9% for full imports and 6% for full exports. This is growth is lower than was witnessed last year when the three stevedores increased their TAC import and export charges by 22% and 23% respectively between 2023 and 2024. Historical change in average terminal access charges can be seen in the chart below. Average TACs in Sydney and Brisbane are likely to increase further this year once Hutchison announce their price changes for 2025. Similarly, Adelaide’s average TAC is missing as Flinders Ports have yet to announce price changes for this year. 

Individual ancillary and penalty charges have also increased, by approximately 6% and 8% respectively. As with TACs, growth in these charges has been lower than last year when the three stevedores increased their charges by 41% and 32% respectively.

Of the cities impacted by these initial changes in charges, Brisbane has seen the greatest increase in Terminal Access Charges (12% since last year), followed by Sydney (8%). Penalty charges have seen the greatest increase in Melbourne (up 10% since last year), while ancillary charges have seen a consistent increase of approximately 7% in all cities.

This has the following consequences for this year’s Landside Port Charges Index as compared to 2024:

• The access indices have increased by an average of 4%.
• The penalty indices have increased by an average of 5%.
• The ancillary indices have increase by an average of 5%.

The indices are likely to increase further for 2025 as some stevedores operating in Australia have yet to announce changes in pricing.

More recently, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) released its Container stevedore monitoring report. The report reviewed developments in the container freight supply chain in 2023-24 and includes a detailed examination of landside port charges including charges at empty container parks. The ACCC used its compulsory information-gathering powers to require stevedores to provide information and documents spanning a 7-year period. It found that there are likely market failures in the container freight supply chain which may warrant a policy or a regulatory response. Specific findings include:

• Many cargo owners have limited ability to exercise choice over the use of container stevedore terminals and empty container parks.
• There is limited competition between stevedores on landside charges
• Stevedores have used landside charges to increase their prices and operating profits above levels that they were likely to achieve without them
• Concerns that stevedores face few constraints on their ability to increase the amount of weight misdeclaration fees, and that these fees may create additional costs for parties that bear no responsibility for the misdeclaration container mass
• Market participants have consistently raised strong concerns about the impact of higher landside charges on their business, and that increases in charges have not translated into improvements in landside services

The ACCC recommended the consideration of a policy or regulatory response to improve the efficiency of the container freight supply chain in Australia, specially:

• Measures to address the apparent market failures relating to fixed charges levied by stevedores to transport operators
• Measures to address the apparent market failures relating to incentive-based charges levied by stevedores, including the appropriateness of stevedores’ weight misdeclaration fees
• Steps to scrutinise empty container parks to assess whether the apparent market failures relating to notification fees need to be addressed, ether via the measures identified in relation to stevedores or otherwise

Several industry groups such as the Freight Trade Alliance, International Forwarders and Customs Brokers Association of Australia and the Container Transport Alliance Australia are now calling for governments to create a mandatory code for stevedore landside charges, overseen by an appropriate regulatory body.

Further information on our Landside Port Charges Index and Dashboard can be found here