Container rates by route, and why the indices disagree

Two public indices cover the lanes I care about. Both publish weekly, both are free to read, and they disagree by several hundred dollars on lanes that carry the same name. This page keeps the readings, the date on each, and the reasons they differ. Where a number was not available, the bottom of the page says so.

Freightos Baltic Index, latest week

Values read from Freightos’ own route pages on 9 October 2026, in US dollars per 40-foot container (FEU). The pages did not all carry the same week: FBX03 and FBX11 showed a 9 October index date, FBX01 and FBX13 still showed 2 October. Hence the date in the cell.

The FBX global composite ended week 40 at 3,341, unchanged from the start of the week (Baltic Exchange week 40 container report, 5 Oct 2026, read via a syndication of the same report at Hellenic Shipping News).

Drewry World Container Index, latest assessment

Drewry publishes on Thursdays and dates each assessment.

Drewry’s own page carries only the current week, so the 2025 column comes from a feed that reproduces its weekly dispatch in full. That week was the seventeenth straight weekly decline and the lowest composite since January 2024. Drewry attributed the 8 October fall to the Golden Week lull and to more services returning to the Suez Canal.

Which index I use, and what each one measures

Freightos Baltic Index (FBX). Twelve lanes, 40-foot containers, created with the Baltic Exchange. The composite is a weighted average of the twelve route indexes; the weekly figure averages the five business days of the same week and publishes each Friday; rates are calculated at 06:00 UTC and published at 14:00 UTC. It describes the inputs as transaction data aggregated from its own rate platform rather than a survey, and calls FBX IOSCO-compliant and used for index-linked contracts on SGX and CME (FBX page, retrieved 9 Oct 2026).

The lane definitions matter more than the compliance claim. FBX01’s headline names Shanghai and Ningbo as key origins and Los Angeles and Chicago as key destinations (FBX01 page). The port list lower on that page is wider: Yantian, Hong Kong, Kobe, Busan, Singapore, Kaohsiung and Vung Tau as origins, plus Vancouver, Long Beach, Oakland, Seattle and Tacoma as destinations. Chicago is an inland rail move.

Drewry World Container Index (WCI). Eight East-West trades, 40-foot containers, assessed by Drewry’s analysts and published Thursdays. Drewry calls it a spot-market benchmark and says a wider product, Container Freight Rate Insight, covers 6,700 port pairs a month (Drewry WCI). Its Shanghai–Los Angeles lane is a port pair.

SCFI, which I do not republish. The Shanghai Containerized Freight Index is compiled by the Shanghai Shipping Exchange, whose pages reserve the content and prohibit reproduction or commercial use without permission. So no SCFI values appear here. Its published methodology is quotable from the exchange’s own FAQ and index description (FAQ, description, retrieved 9 Oct 2026):

• Composite in points, base period 16 October 2009 at 1,000 points, covering 13 routes.
• Unit is USD per TEU, except the two US routes, which are USD per FEU.
• Base ports are narrow: Europe as Hamburg, Antwerp, Felixstowe, Le Havre; the Mediterranean as Barcelona, Valencia, Genoa, Naples; US West Coast as Los Angeles, Long Beach, Oakland; US East Coast as New York, Savannah, Norfolk, Charleston.
• Surcharges are included as a published list (BAF/FAF, EBS/EBA, CAF/YAS, PSS, WRS, PCS and the SCS/SCF/PTF/PCC group). Terminal handling at both ends, the port facility security surcharge, inland on-carriage and the US customs declaration charge are excluded.
• Rates are export CIF, CY to CY, reported by the exchange’s panel of liner companies, consignors and forwarders by 12:00 Beijing time on the publication date.

If you need SCFI figures, take them from the exchange, not from a page like this one.

Why two indices give different numbers for the same corridor

Compare my two tables. Asia–US West Coast is 8,322 on FBX01 for the week to 2 October against 7,624 on WCI Shanghai–Los Angeles for 8 October: a gap of 698 dollars, about 9%. On the East Coast the direction flips. FBX03 is 9,606 and WCI Shanghai–New York is 10,220, so the narrower-sounding index sits 614 dollars higher.

Six documented reasons produce gaps like that:

Destination scope. Freightos’ FBX01 headline names Chicago among its destinations. WCI’s lane ends at the port of Los Angeles. An inland rail leg is a real cost.

Origin scope. FBX01’s origin list covers eight East Asian ports, Shanghai among them. FBX03 names Houston as well as New York (FBX03 page). Houston has a different cost base from New York. A lane that mixes ports averages unlike things.

Unit. SCFI quotes USD per TEU on most routes, USD per FEU only on the US lanes. FBX and WCI quote USD per 40-foot box everywhere. Headlines rarely say which unit a number carries.

Surcharge treatment. SCFI publishes its inclusion list, quoted above. Freightos describes its inputs as rolling short-term FAK spot tariffs “and related surcharges”. I found one description of a Drewry benchmark saying it excludes origin terminal handling (Lloyd’s List), but it covers a Hong Kong–Los Angeles benchmark, not this lane. Two indices can differ simply because one carries a fuel or peak-season line and the other does not.

How the sample is made. SCFI’s figure is reported to the exchange by a panel to a deadline. Freightos’ figure is computed from transaction records on its own platform, which covers the forwarders and carriers using it. Drewry’s figure is an assessment by its analysts. Reported, observed and assessed are three different measurements of one market.

When it is measured. WCI is a Thursday assessment. FBX is a Friday average of that week’s five business days. In a week when the lane moves 5%, the two cannot land on the same number.

One more trap: take the number off the publisher’s own page and write down its vintage. For week 40 the Baltic Exchange report gives FBX01 at 8,319 and Freightos’ route page gives 8,322. For the composite the Baltic report gives 3,341 and Freightos’ FBX index page gives 3,344. Reprints and stale tickers carry that gap forward.

The index is not your quote

An index measures one slice of the ocean leg. A quotation is a sum of lines, and carriers publish new lines on their own schedules. Four examples from notices dated May to September 2026:

• Peak season surcharge, Far East Asia to the US and Canada: USD 1,000 per 20-foot and USD 2,000 per 40/45-foot, effective 17 June 2026 (Maersk advisory, 18 May 2026). That line alone is about 24% of the current FBX01 value, and the rate table on the notice is headed “Non-SPOT booking”.
• Panama Canal surcharge, Asia to US East Coast and Gulf: USD 149 per 20-foot, 297 per 40-foot, 376 per 45-foot from 12 September 2026, which MSC attributes to continuing draft restrictions at the canal (MSC advisory, 12 Aug 2026, reproduced there). CMA CGM posted a Panama Canal adjustment factor of USD 500 per TEU on the same corridor from 10 September 2026 (CMA CGM notice, August 2026, reproduced there). Two carriers, same route, two different units.
• Heavy load surcharge: USD 400 per container on Far East Asia to the US East Coast once a 20-foot box passes 20 tonnes verified gross mass, or a 40-foot box 22 tonnes (Maersk advisory, 29 May 2026). Index values do not weigh anything.
• Emissions surcharge: ONE’s Europe Environment Surcharge for 1 October to 31 December 2026 is USD 220 per 40-foot dry container from Asia/Oceania to Europe and USD 90 to the Mediterranean (ONE notice, 1 Sep 2026). The rule behind it is public: the EU emissions trading system covers 50% of emissions on voyages into or out of the EU and 100% intra-EU and at berth, with allowance surrender phased at 40% of 2024 emissions, 70% of 2025 emissions and 100% from 2027 (European Commission).

Drewry’s week 37 assessment put average waiting time at Shanghai at 78 hours, up from 65 in week 36 (its 17 Sep 2026 dispatch, reproduced). A trade publication counted 136 vessels waiting off Shanghai and Ningbo on 9 October 2026, almost 860,000 TEU (Daily Cargo News).

How this page gets updated

Two free pages cover the tables above: Freightos’ per-lane route pages, each printing a current FBX figure, and Drewry’s dated WCI update. Freightos says a CSV of FBX data is available on request from fbx@freightos.com; I have not asked for it.

Cadence. WCI lands on Thursday. FBX publishes each Friday as an average of that week’s five business days, and the Baltic Exchange’s weekly report summarises the same lanes. A Friday refresh can carry both.

Rules I follow when refreshing.

• Every number gets its own as-of date in the cell. Never “this week”.
• Never compare a Thursday assessment with a Friday weekly average, or a per-TEU figure with a per-FEU figure, without saying so.
• A composite move is not a lane move. Check that your lane is one of the eight or twelve first.
• Check surcharge notices dated after the index period before reading a falling index as a falling invoice.
• None of this is a landed price. Ocean freight is one line of a cost that also carries terminal handling, documentation, local destination charges, drayage and duty.

What I could not check

• Whether WCI’s eight lane values include or exclude specific surcharges. One description of a Drewry benchmark excludes origin terminal handling, but it covers a Hong Kong–Los Angeles benchmark, not this lane. Drewry publishes no complete inclusion list.
• Whether the Maersk and MSC surcharge notices I quote are still in force. They say “until further notice”, and I did not check applicability lane by lane.
• Whether the 9 October 2025 WCI lane values and the 17 September 2026 waiting times are on any Drewry-hosted page. Drewry’s page carries only the current assessment, so both come from feeds that reproduce its weekly dispatch. The Wayback Machine was offline while I worked.
• Whether the 136-vessel, 860,000-TEU Shanghai and Ningbo queue figure has a primary source. I found it only in a trade publication, not in a port authority or terminal report.
• The text of MSC’s and CMA CGM’s own advisory pages, and of the Baltic Exchange report. Those pages block scripted requests, so I read them through reproductions that quote them in full. I could not confirm the publication date on CMA CGM’s notice.
• SCFI values for the current week, by choice. The exchange’s notice does not permit reproduction.
• Asia-outbound FBX or WCI figures for South America or Middle East lanes; the FBX South America lanes are Europe-outbound.