Detention Pay: What You Are Owed and How to Document It
Six hours at a receiver, engine off, clock running. The load pays the same as it would have at two hours, and the day you planned is gone.
Start with the uncomfortable part: no federal regulation requires anyone to pay you detention. There is no rule at FMCSA that sets a rate or a deadline. Detention is contractual — it exists because it is written into an agreement, and it gets paid because someone documented it properly. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling something.
That makes the paperwork the entire game.
What detention actually costs you
The lost hours are the smaller half. Under 49 CFR 395.2, time spent waiting at a shipper or receiver is on-duty time — it burns your 14-hour window even though the truck never moves. Four hours at a dock can turn a legal day into an illegal one, force a reset, and push the next appointment past its window.
Federal oversight reviews have found detention associated with both reduced driver earnings and elevated crash risk, for the obvious reason: a driver who has lost half a day makes worse decisions about the other half. That is worth knowing when a dispatcher suggests you can make the time up.
Check the terms before you accept the load
Detention terms belong on the rate confirmation, not in a phone call. Before you accept, confirm five things in writing.
- Free time — how many hours before detention starts, commonly two
- Rate — per hour, and whether it is prorated or billed in full-hour blocks
- Cap — the maximum per stop or per day, if any
- Documentation required — signed in and out times, gate receipt, ELD record
- Filing deadline — often 24 to 48 hours after delivery
If the rate confirmation is silent on detention, ask for it in writing before you roll. A dispatcher saying it will be taken care of is not a term of the agreement, and it is not what an accounting department pays against.
Document it at the dock, not afterward
Claims fail on missing times far more often than on disputed rates. Record as it happens.
- Arrival time at the gate, and the time you actually checked in
- Name of the person who checked you in
- Assigned door and the time you were assigned it
- Time loading or unloading actually started and finished
- Departure time through the gate
Get the in and out times written on the bill of lading and signed if the facility will do it. Photograph the gate sign, the clock, the door number, and the signed paperwork. Your ELD already logs the duty status change and arrival — that record is often the strongest evidence you have, because nobody can argue you wrote it in later.
Send a short message to dispatch when free time expires, on whatever system creates a timestamp. That message becomes your notice, and notice is frequently what a broker requires before detention accrues at all.
File the claim on time and in the right form
Most detention claims are denied for one of three reasons: filed late, missing signed times, or no advance notice that detention was accruing. All three are avoidable.
Submit the claim with the delivery paperwork rather than separately. Attach the signed BOL with times, your photos, and the ELD segment. Reference the rate confirmation line that authorizes detention. Keep it factual and short — arrival, free time expiration, departure, hours claimed, rate, total.
If it is denied, ask for the specific reason in writing. A denial that cannot articulate which requirement you missed is a denial worth pushing back on.
If you are a company driver
Whether detention reaches you depends entirely on your employment agreement. Some carriers pass through a share, some pay a flat detention rate after a set number of hours, and some collect it without paying anything down to the driver.
Ask directly, and ask for the answer in writing: does this company pay detention to drivers, after how many hours, at what rate, and what do I have to submit? A recruiter who cannot answer that clearly is telling you something.
Separately, be aware that the Fair Labor Standards Act motor carrier exemption removes most interstate drivers from federal overtime requirements. It does not remove minimum wage protection. State law may add more.
The facilities that do it repeatedly
Detention is rarely random. Certain shippers and receivers run four and five hours as normal operating practice, and the drivers who go there know it long before the industry acknowledges it.
That information is worth having before you accept a load, not after. If you have sat at a facility or hauled for a broker that consistently refuses legitimate detention claims, other drivers benefit from knowing which one.