On 10 September, CMA CGM begins collecting $500 per TEU on Far East cargo bound for the US East and Gulf coasts. At the end of July the same carrier was charging $100. Three other lines have filed their own Panama Canal surcharges in the same window, ranging from$130 to $150 per TEU.
The Panama Canal Authority has lowered the maximum draft twice and cut daily transits for the first time this cycle. Ships are carrying less, and someone pays for that.
The Panama Canal Authority issued Advisory ADV-29-2026 on 20 August. It cut how many ships pass and how deep they can sit.
From 3 September the canal books 9 Neopanamax and 25 Panamaxtransits a day, down from 10 and 26. From 15 September the Panamaxfigure drops again to 23. That takes 36 daily transits down to 32, a cut of about 11%.
The draft tiers landed later than first announced. The 48-foot (14.63 m) limit moved from 26 August to 2 September. The 47.5-foot (14.48 m) limit moved from 3 September to 1 October. Normal operating draft in the Neopanamax locks is 50 feet.
The trigger is rainfall. Precipitation across the canal watershed ran 34% below the historical average from May through August, within flows 44% below normal. Gatun Lake stood at 84.3 feet on 12 August, with the Authority forecasting 82.8 feet by mid-October. During the2023 drought the lake fell to just over 79 feet.
The lake still sits about five feet above where it bottomed out in2023. Nobody is repeating that year yet. The transit cuts are new, though. Through most of August the canal limited how much a ship could load, not how many ships could pass.
Draft is how deep a ship sits, and it deepens as weight goes on. Cap the draft at 48 feet and a vessel that would normally load to 50 feet leaves weight ashore.
The Journal of Commerce cites a rule of thumb: a 10,000-TEU vessel loses roughly 450 TEU of capacity per foot of draft restriction. At47.5 feet, that ship gives up about 1,125 TEU against its normal load.
Xeneta assessed Asia to US East Coast at $10,527 per FEU on 24 August, about $5,264 per TEU. On that basis, 1,125 lost slots are roughly $5.9 million the carrier cannot earn on the sailing. Spread across the 8,875 TEU still aboard, breaking even needs about $667 per TEU.
Against that figure, CMA CGM's $500 looks like partial recovery rather than opportunism, and the $130 to $150 filed by the other three lines looks conservative.
All of that assumes the ship is weight-limited, and most are not. Consumer goods, apparel, furniture and packaged electronics fill a vessel's slots long before they fill its deadweight, and on those sailings a draft cap costs the carrier nothing. Dense cargo pushes a ship to its draft mark: machinery, auto parts, batteries, tiles, paper. Worldtop & Meta books a lot of that out of Taiwan and Southeast Asia, and those are the sailings where a draft cap genuinely costs the carrier something.
Sources: carrier customer advisories as reported by Container News and Supply Chain Dive, August 2026.
The spread runs from $130 to $500 for a constraint every carrier faces equally. CMA CGM's move from $100 in late July to $500 in September is five-fold in six weeks. The lanes are drawn differently too: Hapag-Lloyd names North America broadly, while MSC lists specific origin countries and bills by gate-in date rather than sailing date.
Simon Heaney, senior manager of container research at Drewry, put the problem plainly on LinkedIn in August: "Customers get a terse announcement that a new surcharge will apply, with no explanation of what has changed, what the additional cost represents, or how the amount was calculated."
Carriers answer that costing every voyage container by container would take too long, and that the number gets negotiated down anyway. Bunker prices are high too, they say, because of the Middle East conflict and the disruption at the Strait of Hormuz. That explains a flat charge. It does not explain a spread of nearly four to one.
Does this sailing actually transit the canal? Not every Asia to US East Coast string does. Some route via Suez, some around the Cape of Good Hope. Ask for the vessel name and rotation, then check whether Panama appears in it. A canal surcharge on a Suez routing is a billing error, and it happens.
Which date triggers the charge? MSC applies its surcharge by gate-in date, so cargo delivered to the terminal on 11September escapes it and cargo delivered on the 12th does not. Other carriers use sailing date or bill-of-lading date. On a shipment already in motion, one day of scheduling can be worth $297 on a40-foot container.
Is this inside your contract or outside it? Most contracts treat a charge levied by a government or a canal authority as a pass-through, and an adjustment factor declared by the carrier as a commercial charge. A rise in the canal toll passes through. An adjustment factor with a carrier's name on it does not have to, and shippers with volume have had them cut or dropped.
What does the alternative actually cost? Xeneta put Asia to US West Coast at $7,193 per FEU on 24 August, against$10,527 to the East Coast. A gap of about $3,300. Then add rail from Los Angeles or Long Beach to wherever the cargo is going, and compare door to door rather than port to port. Gene Seroka of the Port of Los Angeles expects about 5% of East Coast cargo to move west this cycle. The Journal of Commerce polled eight medium and large retailers in August and none had made the switch. Several said they would refuse the surcharge instead.
The 47.5-foot tier lands on 1 October. NOAA's Climate Prediction Center said on 13 August that there is a greater than 90% chance of a very strong El Niño through the coming autumn and winter, and a 69%chance that the October to December index reaches a level no El Niño has reached since records began in 1950. A sixth adjustment is more likely than not.
Booked transits still hold. Carriers with confirmed slots keep them, which is why container lines have largely stayed out of the auction market where a Neopanamax slot recently sold for close to $4million. Bulk and breakbulk operators without bookings are doing the bidding, and average winning bids have risen roughly sixteen-fold in a year.
Ask your forwarder to confirm in writing which of your September and October bookings transit Panama and which do not. At Worldtop &Meta that check runs against the vessel rotation rather than the service name, because strings get re-routed mid-season without being renamed. Settle the surcharge treatment for the rest of your contract period before the next filing rather than after it. If your cargo is dense enough to make a vessel weight-limited, say so when you negotiate, because that is the cargo the restriction genuinely affects.
Waiting times in mid-August ran about eight days northbound and ten days southbound. Build those into your delivery promises rather than your apologies.
What is a Panama Canal surcharge? It is a fee a shipping line adds to ocean freight to recover the cost of reduced capacity or higher tolls at the Panama Canal. It is separate from the toll the Panama Canal Authority charges the vessel. In 2026, four carriers filed such surcharges on Asia to US East and Gulf Coast cargo, ranging from $130 to $500 per TEU.
How much is the Panama Canal surcharge in September 2026? CMA CGM charges $500 per TEU from 10 September 2026. MSC charges $149per 20-foot, $297 per 40-foot and $376 per 45-foot container from 12September. ONE charges $150 per container from 10 August, and Hapag-Lloyd $130 per TEU from 15 August. Amounts and dates come from each carrier's customer advisory and are subject to change.
Can a Panama Canal surcharge be negotiated? Often, yes. Tolls set by the Panama Canal Authority normally passthrough under standard contract language, but an adjustment factor declared by the carrier is a commercial charge. Shippers with contracted volume have negotiated these down or had them waived. Whether yours is negotiable depends on the wording of your service contract.
Why is the Panama Canal restricting ships in 2026? Rainfall in the canal watershed ran 34% below the historical average between May and August 2026, and inflows were 44% below normal, lowering Gatun Lake. Because the locks use fresh lake water for every transit, the Authority lowers the maximum vessel draft and reduces the number of daily transits to conserve it. NOAA forecasts a very strong El Niño through winter 2026-27, which typically brings drier conditions to Panama.
Should I move my cargo to the US West Coast instead? It depends on your inland destination. The Asia to US West Coast rate was about $3,300 per FEU below the East Coast rate in late August2026, but rail or truck from Los Angeles to an eastern destination absorbs much of that. Compare door-to-door cost and total transit time. The Port of Los Angeles expects only about 5% of East Coast cargo to shift.
The constraint at the canal is real, and carriers are entitled to recover the capacity they lose to it. The September notices just do not show their working. Name the vessel, the transit date, the contract clause and the density of your cargo, and the question stops being whether the surcharge is fair. It becomes whether it applies to you at all.
The 47.5-foot restriction arrives on 1 October, and the forecastpoints to more after it. There is time to settle terms for the restof the year before the next notice lands.
If you would like your September and October bookings checked against the canal routings and the surcharge terms reviewed line byline, talk to the Worldtop & Meta team.
