Detention pay: the four timestamps that decide it

Detention gets denied for one reason more than every other reason combined: nobody wrote down the time.

Getting paidUpdated 2026-08-25~4 min

Detention is what a shipper or receiver owes when a driver is held past the agreed free time — usually two hours — for loading or unloading. And it gets denied for one reason more than every other reason combined: nobody wrote down the time.

Not because the driver didn't sit. He sat. But sitting isn't billable. Documented sitting is billable, and those are very different things by the time an invoice reaches someone whose job is finding reasons not to pay it.

Four timestamps decide which one you have

ARRIVAL · CHECK-IN · DOOR ASSIGNED · EMPTY

If your driver sends those four before he pulls off the property, you have a claim. If he calls the next morning and says he sat forever, you have a story. Stories don't get paid.

Move the ask earlier than feels natural

Every instinct says to deal with detention when you invoice. That's the worst possible time. By then the yard has forgotten your truck existed, the guard who logged him in is off shift, and you're asking a stranger to confirm something that costs their company money.

So move all of it forward:

Put the detention terms in the rate confirmation, not in the invoice email. Free time, hourly rate, cap. In writing, before the truck rolls.
Ask for the check-in time at check-in, while the driver is standing there and the guard has the log open in front of him.
Have the driver text you the timestamps as they happen, not in a summary at the end of the day. Four texts, thirty seconds total.

Before every pickup"Text me arrival, check-in, door, and empty before you leave the property. If you sit past two hours, that's how you get paid for it."

The number most people get wrong

Free time starts when the driver arrives, not when the appointment was scheduled.

If he's there at 08:00 for a 10:00 appointment, that's two hours the shipper had a truck available and didn't use. Whether it's billable depends on your contract and the terms in your rate con — which is exactly why the terms belong in the rate con. Those two numbers are different more often than they're the same, and nobody volunteers the difference.

When it gets denied anyway

Sometimes it will, and how you respond matters more than the money on that one load. Send the four timestamps, the signed rate confirmation with the terms in it, and the driver's messages. No argument, no tone. Documentation, once.

If they still won't pay, that's information about the account. Price the next load accordingly rather than fighting this one to the ground.

Four timestamps. Ask at check-in, not at the invoice.

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