Savannah
A customs broker for the Port of Savannah
Savannah moved 5.67 million TEU in fiscal 2026, including a record 4.22 million loaded TEU, through Garden City Terminal, the largest single-terminal container facility of its kind in North America. Borderless clears entries here under a national permit (CBP filer code NQR), with the port's exam costs and free-time clock managed for you.
At this port
Filing Savannah entries through Borderless
We respect Savannah's clock
Seven calendar days of free time, then storage tiers that double at day 21. ISF before loading, entry ready at arrival, releases chased daily: the whole service is built around not paying the port to store your cargo.
Exam exposure, managed
Savannah publishes exactly what exams cost, and consumer goods draw them: furniture, apparel, textiles, and hardware are about 27% of import TEU here. We keep documentation exam-ready and track every hold to release.
0% duty-disbursement
Most brokers charge 2–5% of your duty bill to advance it to CBP. We set up free direct ACH payment instead, which matters most on exactly the duty-heavy consumer goods Savannah moves.
Built for the sourcing shift
Southeast Asia is up 50% at Savannah since FY22 while Northeast Asia fell 21%. New origins mean new classification, origin, and trade-program calls, and that judgment work is bundled in our flat rate.
The port
What actually moves through Savannah
Georgia Ports Authority calls Savannah the third-busiest container gateway in the U.S., and its import book is consumer goods: machinery and electronics (15%), retail consumer goods (15%), furniture (13%), automotive (9%), and hardware and houseware (7%) led fiscal 2026, with Savannah holding the highest South Atlantic market share in all ten of its top import commodity groups. On the loaded numbers Savannah is strongly import-dominant, and the classification-heavy categories (furniture, apparel, textiles, hardware) are roughly 27% of import TEU: duty-rate-sensitive cargo where the HTS call is worth real money.
The lane shift is the story of this port. Between fiscal 2022 and 2026, Northeast Asia imports fell 21% while Southeast Asia grew 50% to 26% of import TEU. Vietnam is the fastest-growing partner (about 379,000 TEU in fiscal 2025, up 38% in five years), with nine direct services; the Gemini network (the Maersk/Hapag-Lloyd collaboration) makes Savannah its first U.S. East Coast call from Haiphong at an advertised 39 days. Exports lead with food (poultry, pet feed, peanuts), wood pulp, and autos, and Savannah is the nation's busiest port for cotton exports at 37% of the U.S. export market in fiscal 2025.
It's also an unusually rail-forward port: 541,405 containers moved by rail in fiscal 2026 (17% of total container trade) through Mason Mega Rail, with vessel-to-rail averaging 20 hours and overnight service reaching Atlanta, Birmingham, Charlotte, Memphis, and Orlando. Two inland ports extend the dock: the Appalachian Regional Port in northwest Georgia (up nearly 20% in fiscal 2026) and the new Gainesville Inland Port, opened May 4, 2026. Atlanta is CBP port 1704 in the same District 17 as Savannah (port 1703), so inland-railed cargo stays in-district.
The money mechanics
Exams and the free-time clock, in real dollars
Savannah is unusually transparent about what delay costs, because the port authority publishes it. Under GPA's tariff Rule 34-525 (effective January 1, 2026), a full inspection of a 40-foot container runs $1,032 palletized or $1,432 non-palletized, a partial $612 to $1,057, a tailgate exam $302, plus a $347 government-agency facilitation fee on inspections for agencies including CBP, FDA, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, the Coast Guard, and Fish & Wildlife. The port moves the container to the exam station without devanning and bills the ocean carrier, which means it comes back to you as a pass-through.
The clock matters more: import loads get seven consecutive calendar days of free time starting at the first 12:01 AM after discharge, so weekends and holidays burn free days. After that, storage (effective October 1, 2025) runs $18.48 per TEU per day for days 1-3, $32.60 for days 4-6, $46.73 for days 7-20, and $93.46 beyond, and those are per-TEU figures, so a 40-footer accrues at double. An exam plus a slow agency release walks a container into the expensive tiers quickly. That's the actual case for a broker here: entries filed before arrival, documents exam-ready, and releases chased daily.
Ground facts worth knowing (as published, August 2026): truck turns averaged 31 minutes single and 51 minutes dual in July 2026 on nearly 15,000 daily transactions; chassis run through a single designated pool (SACP, managed by CCM); weekday gates run from early morning with a dry-only Saturday window and Sunday gates only by carrier request; and Garden City's gates close fully on five 2026 holidays, which still count against free time. Gate schedules change, so confirm with the terminal before dispatching. Bigger picture: the nearly $1.6 billion Ocean Terminal conversion was 55% complete in June 2026 (capacity rising from 200,000 to 1.75 million TEU), a new harbor-deepening study launched the same month because 16,000-TEU ships now call on a 47-foot channel, and GPA targets 9 million TEU of capacity by 2029.
Questions
Filing into Savannah: common questions
Do I need a Savannah-based customs broker to clear at the Port of Savannah?
No. Entries file electronically in CBP's ACE system, and a broker with a national permit files at any U.S. port. Borderless clears Savannah shipments (CBP port 1703, District 17) remotely under filer code NQR. Cargo railed inland to Atlanta stays in the same customs district (port 1704).
What does a customs exam cost at Savannah?
Georgia Ports' own tariff (Rule 34-525, effective January 1, 2026) prices it: a full inspection of a 40-foot container is $1,032 palletized or $1,432 non-palletized, a partial runs $612 to $1,057, a tailgate exam is $302, and a $347 agency facilitation fee applies to inspections for agencies including CBP, FDA, CPSC, Coast Guard, and Fish & Wildlife. The move to the exam station is billed through your ocean carrier and lands on you as a pass-through. Managing the exam clock is a big part of what a broker does here.
How much free time do containers get at Savannah, and what does storage cost after?
Seven consecutive calendar days for import loads under GPA's tariff, starting at the first 12:01 AM after discharge, so weekends and holidays run against the clock. After that, storage (effective October 1, 2025) runs $18.48 per TEU per day for days 1-3, $32.60 for days 4-6, $46.73 for days 7-20, then $93.46. Those are per-TEU rates: a 40-foot container accrues at double. An exam plus a slow agency release walks a box into the expensive tiers fast, which is why we file early and chase releases hard.
My sourcing moved from China to Vietnam. Does Savannah handle that lane well?
Yes, and it's the port's fastest-growing lane: Vietnam was about 379,000 TEU in GPA's fiscal 2025, up 38% over five years, with nine direct services and advertised transits around 33-39 days. For the entry itself, a new origin means new suppliers on the ISF, new manufacturer IDs, and a fresh look at tariff exposure. That classification and origin work is exactly what our flat rate includes.
Figures from Georgia Ports Authority's published FY26 statistics, 2025-26 releases, and its Marine Terminal Operator tariff rules (exam charges effective January 1, 2026; storage rates effective October 1, 2025), plus the U.S. Census Schedule D district file. Verified August 30, 2026; tariff rates change on reissue. Borderless files at every U.S. port under a national permit and keeps no Savannah office; seeport coverage,LA / Long Beach,New York / New Jersey, andHouston.
Importing through Savannah?
Flat published rates, exam exposure managed, and the 7-day clock never left running. Tell us about your shipments.