Detention pay

Free time is usually stated as two hours per stop, though the number lives in the rate confirmation and varies by broker [SOURCE NEEDED]. Detention is not the same as layover, which covers being held overnight or into a following day. Some brokers use the words interchangeably, and the rate confirmation controls.

In practice. Detention gets denied on documentation, not on principle. You need arrival and departure times recorded in a way the broker accepts, which usually means signed in-and-out times on the BOL, a gate receipt, or telematics data the broker has agreed in advance to honor.

Notify the broker while the driver is still sitting. A detention claim first raised on the invoice tends to get refused as unverifiable.

Example. A rate confirmation allows two hours free and pays $50 per hour after that, capped at $300. The driver checks in at 08:00 and leaves at 13:30. That is 5.5 hours total, 3.5 hours billable, and $175 in detention.

Why it matters for your cash flow. Detention is unpaid time your truck cannot earn anywhere else, and the cost is the load you did not take. Carriers who document arrival times by default collect it, and carriers who reconstruct the day afterward usually do not.