Freight and landed cost

Main shipping routes

Backhaul legs are left out. They are real, and nobody sourcing out of Asia is costing against them. All twelve lanes are on the Freightos terminal.

The Shanghai freight index

• SCFI comprehensive 3679.6 +0.42%
• CCFI composite 1922.6 +0.54%

Freight from China, by destination

• Europe 1855.6 -3.94%
• Mediterranean 2354.6 -0.84%
• W/C America 1855.9 +3.08%
• E/C America 2080.8 +2.62%
• Southeast 1462.7 +6.61%
• Persian Gulf/Red Sea 4038.1 +0.07%

Index points, not dollars, published by the Shanghai Shipping Exchange for 16 October 2026 against 9 October 2026. Every lane above measures cargo leaving China, so read them as the cost of moving a box out of China to that destination and not as a rate between any other pair of ports. Because they are index points rather than dollars they cannot be turned into the cents per kilo below, which only the Freightos composite can. The exchange publishes only the comprehensive SCFI reading openly. Every lane row comes back null because lane detail sits behind a login, so no SCFI lane figures are shown.

Routes with no free source

No free weekly source publishes container rates out of Karachi, Port Qasim, Chattogram, Nhava Sheva or Mundra. We will not estimate one, so there is no figure here, and the lanes above are China origin and do not stand in for yours. What to do instead, in order: ask your forwarder for an all-in rate per 40ft box on the exact leg and month, ask a second one the same week, then take the number they give you to the table directly below, which turns any box rate into cents per kilo. That table is our own arithmetic and works on a Karachi quote exactly as it works on a Shanghai one.

Which sources we checked on 4 September 2026, and what each returned

• Chattogram to Shanghai, Karachi to Chattogram, and the Indian ports to either Not published by any free, weekly, reproducible source found. Every route below was checked for them.
• Shanghai Shipping Exchange, SCFI Defines a lane called "India and Pakistan 20ft (Nhava Sheva)" and one for Southeast Asia, but returns an empty value for every lane. Opened again on 4 September 2026: the page answers, and its lane table is a script template filled from a subscriber feed, with a username, password and verification code box on the same page. Only the comprehensive index carries a number without that login, so there is nothing to quote.
• Shanghai Shipping Exchange, CCFI Twelve lanes do carry live values, and two of them are now shown above. But every CCFI lane measures cargo leaving China, and none covers India, Pakistan or Bangladesh as an origin.
• Freightos Baltic Index Twelve public lanes, all between China or East Asia, North America, North Europe, the Mediterranean and South America. None touches South Asia. The public lane list was read again on 4 September 2026 and holds exactly the same twelve codes as before, FBX01 to FBX04, FBX11 to FBX14, FBX21, FBX22, FBX24 and FBX26. India, Pakistan and Bangladesh do appear on that page, but only inside a country dropdown, not as a lane.
• Drewry World Container Index Eight lanes, none South Asian, and its terms bar commercial reuse in any case, which is why Drewry is only ever a link here and never a figure.
• Ningbo Containerized Freight Index The host did not answer from our network, tried again on 4 September 2026 at both of its addresses and still not answering, so this one is genuinely unchecked rather than checked and rejected. We will not claim otherwise.

If you know of a South Asian container index that is published openly and updated weekly, tell us and we will read it. The lane rates that do exist for these routes sit inside commercial subscriptions whose terms do not allow us to republish them.

What that costs you per kilo

A container rate is quoted per box and your costing is per kilo. The gap between the two is decided by how much you actually load, and bulky apparel fills a box long before it reaches the weight limit. Read your lane rate above, then read across. If your leg is one of the South Asian ones with no published index, put your forwarder's quoted box rate in the left column instead: the arithmetic does not care where the box sailed from.

Ocean leg only. It does not include origin handling, destination charges, duty, insurance or inland movement, all of which are lane specific and often larger than the sea freight itself on a cheap-rate week. The worked explanation is on the learning page.

Take it with you a reckoner you can put your own quoted rate into, with this table as its second sheet: a calculator with live formulas , with its sources, its licence and a sheet explaining every column inside the file.

What three carriers asked for August 2026, westbound to Europe

One month, one direction, the same ports. Where more than one carrier quoted the same port, the dearest asks between 43 and 75 per cent more than the cheapest, and the widest gap of the three is Chattogram to Europe. That is the single best argument for asking more than one forwarder before you accept a number. Hapag-Lloyd reached its August figures in one step, adding US$1,500 per container at Karachi and Port Qasim and US$2,000 at Nhava Sheva, Mundra and Chattogram, so its rows below are already the raised ones and nothing further is added on top.

Read this before you use it. All rows took effect on 1 August 2026. MSC set its month to end on 31 August; Hapag-Lloyd and CMA CGM said until further notice. Where the two columns are equal the carrier quoted one figure per container and did not split it by box size, so the same number is shown twice rather than a split being invented. Where they differ, look again at the Hapag-Lloyd rows: a 40ft box is cheaper than a 20ft one on that tariff, so shipping two 20ft boxes when one 40ft would hold the order costs you twice and saves you nothing. None of these figures includes terminal handling, the bunker charge, the EU emissions charge, duty, insurance or inland movement, and on a cheap week those together can exceed the sea freight.

The same lane through 2026, so you can see how fast it moves

One carrier, CMA CGM, one destination, North Europe, every dated announcement it made this year. The levels will be wrong within a month. The shape will not: a rate that multiplied by 3.6 in eight months is the reason a quotation with no expiry date on it is worthless.

What the columns mean. The first two are to North Europe; the third is to North Africa and is there because it shows the premium for a thinner trade lane holding steady at about a thousand dollars a box while everything underneath it triples. CMA CGM quoted the same figure for 20ft and 40ft at every one of these dates except 15 February 2026, where South East India and Sri Lanka were split; the Pakistan and North West India columns shown here were not split. Rates include ocean freight and the bunker surcharges, and exclude terminal handling and security charges.

The way back, Europe to South Asia

CMA CGM again, effective 1 July 2026, so it compares like for like with the series above. Sending a box out costs about 6 times what it costs to send one back. That ratio is the most durable number on this card: it barely moves even in a year when the levels do. It is why a container returns to Karachi almost empty, and why importing machinery, trims or dyestuff from Europe is far cheaper per box than a first time buyer expects.

Note the direction of the split. Here the 40ft is cheaper than the 20ft, the normal way round, and the opposite of the Hapag-Lloyd eastbound rows. Rates include basic ocean freight and bunker related surcharges and exclude terminal handling, emissions and security charges.

Surcharges, which are added to a rate and are not one

These are the numbers most likely to be misread, so they are kept apart from the tables above. A peak season surcharge sits on top of whatever freight rate you agreed and runs for a few named weeks. A general rate increase lifts the base rate itself and has no end date. Reading either one as the cost of shipping to America, rather than as an addition to it, would understate a garment costing badly.

• Pakistan to the United States and Canada US$9,000 per container Maersk, from 15 to 30 September 2026 A peak season surcharge, not a freight rate. The same announcement sets North West India at US$9,650, South and East India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh at US$9,500, and Houston as a destination at US$9,800. One month earlier the Pakistan figure was US$5,000 and the North West India figure US$5,650, so this surcharge alone rose by about seventy per cent in a month.
• The Gulf to the United States and Canada US$6,000 per container Maersk, from 15 to 30 September 2026 Covers the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan and Yemen. Also a peak season surcharge and not a rate.
• The Indian subcontinent and Pakistan to the United States and Canada US$1,000 per container Hapag-Lloyd, from 1 August 2026, until further notice A general rate increase, which is not the same instrument as the two figures above. A peak season surcharge runs for a few named weeks and then stops. A general rate increase lifts the base rate itself and carries no end date. It applies to every 20ft and 40ft dry, reefer and special container including high cube, on every box gated in full from 1 August 2026. Read it beside the Maersk figures rather than instead of them: two carriers were charging on the same lane in the same season.

Three lanes still missing. We found no published carrier tariff for South Asia to the Gulf as a destination, none for Bangladesh to the United States as an all-in rate rather than a surcharge, and none for the run home from South Asia back to China. All three gaps are real and none is filled with a guess. The China one is explained in the next block, because a raw material buyer asks about it more than any other.

China and the Far East into South Asia, the raw material leg

Cotton, man made fibre, yarn and greige cloth come the other way, out of China and the rest of the Far East into Karachi, Port Qasim, Mundra, Pipavav and Jawaharlal Nehru. One carrier publishes a number on that leg and it is a surcharge, not a rate, so it is here on its own and never inside a rate table. What it is worth reading for is not the figure but the movement: 7 readings in five months, from US$200 to US$1,800, a spread of about 9 times.

The fine print on every one of these. Origins are China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Brunei and Timor Leste. Every notice says it does not apply to a spot booking, and that local and contingency charges may still be added. Two notices set a later start for one or two countries, Vietnam in March and South Korea in August, so the date in the table is the main one and not the only one.

The run home is not published by anyone. We looked for a tariff or a surcharge out of Pakistan, India or Bangladesh into China and found none, from any carrier. That is not an oversight in the search, it is how the trade works: the loaded leg carries the published number and the lighter leg home is priced by negotiation. Ask your forwarder for it and expect a figure well under the one above. One public index does price the China to India and Pakistan leg, the Ningbo Containerized Freight Index, published every Friday by the Ningbo Shipping Exchange, but its figures may not be reproduced here, so it is a link and not a number.

Where to get today's number yourself

Everything above has a date on it and every one of those dates will go stale. These are the places a buyer can go for a live figure, each opened in a browser on 7 September 2026 and marked with what was actually seen. Two of them we did not sign up to, and that is marked as not tested rather than guessed at.

• Hapag-Lloyd Ocean Tariff (opens in a new tab) No login needed A freight all kind ocean tariff, looked up by loading port and discharge port. Fill the two port boxes only and leave both country boxes empty, because the form refuses more than one filled box on a side and says so. The page states that every rate in it other than a freight all kind rate comes from a bilateral agreement, so a negotiated rate will never appear here.
• Hapag-Lloyd trade surcharges (opens in a new tab) No login needed The surcharge schedules themselves, as dated PDFs, valid until further notice. Fuel recovery, regional terminal handling and security, shipping guarantee fees and destination free time fees. This is where the numbers live that a freight rate does not include.
• Maersk prices and quotes (opens in a new tab) No login needed Instant prices on Maersk Spot and Maersk Go, inland container transport and air freight. Maersk states on that page that prices are indicative only, that availability can change without notice, and that only ocean freight is shown. A quote for oversized cargo or for less than a container is requested rather than shown.
• MSC (opens in a new tab) Account needed Tracking, sailing schedules and office contacts in public. No rate. A rate needs a myMSC account, which is why the MSC figures in the tables above came from a public announcement instead.
• CMA CGM instant quoting (opens in a new tab) Account needed An instant quote, once you are signed in. The page itself redirects to a login. An account can be requested from that login screen. Until it is granted you see nothing.
• Freightos (opens in a new tab) Sign up not tested A marketplace that compares many carriers and forwarders on one lane. We opened the site and it is live. We did not create an account, so we cannot tell you what it shows before you sign up.
• SeaRates by DP World (opens in a new tab) Sign up not tested The same idea, a freight quote search across carriers and forwarders. Also opened and live, also not signed up to. Its own rates page at a slash services slash rates address is a dead link, so use the front page.

What none of them will give you. A tariff lookup returns a list price for a box on a lane. It is not your cost. Terminal handling at both ends, the bunker charge, emissions, documentation, customs and the run to and from the port are all outside it, and together they are rarely small. Take the number to your forwarder and ask for the all-in figure to your own door.