Sea import clearance · Port of Tema

Demurrage doesn't wait for anyone to open the spreadsheet.

Freetime puts a live free-time clock on every container you are holding, with the clearance file behind it — declaration, duty, release, delivery. You find out which box crosses into demurrage tomorrow, not when the shipping line's invoice arrives.

Built for Ghanaian freight forwarders. ICUMS, GRA duty and Tema tariffs are in it already.

A container ship being worked by gantry cranes at a terminal in the late afternoon.
From discharge to gate out

The clock starts the day the vessel discharges.

Not the day the file is opened, not the day anybody looks at it. Free time is already running by the time the pre-alert reaches your desk.

Why this exists

A register tells you what happened. It cannot tell you what is about to.

Free time runs out on a date the spreadsheet does not know it is holding. By the time anyone notices, the charge is days old and not negotiable — it is arithmetic the carrier has already done.

Per day Demurrage accrues daily, per container, from the day free time ends — whether or not anyone is watching.
15 steps Pre-alert to empty return. Miss one and the file stalls somewhere nobody is looking.
Not billable Demurrage caused by a missed step is rarely recoverable from the client. It comes out of the margin.
Rows of stacked shipping containers in a terminal yard.
What it does

The desk, the clock and the client, in one system.

Built around how a clearing office actually works, not around a generic shipment record.

Free-time watch

Every container you hold, sorted by how close it is to costing money. Days remaining, the daily rate, and what has accrued so far.

The clearance file

All fifteen steps from pre-alert to container deposit refunded, each with its own target. The file shows you where it is stuck.

Duty estimator

Duty, VAT and the levies computed off the CIF value the moment the pre-alert lands — a figure to quote before ICUMS assesses.

Client portal

Your consignee signs in, sends original documents and sees what is owed. Fewer calls asking where the container is.

Document review

What a client sends arrives as a submission, not a fact. Your desk approves it, and only then does the step tick.

Analytics

Clearance pace against target, where files stall, and which shipping line is costing you the most in demurrage.

Built for Ghana

Not a global system with Ghana bolted on.

The rules that make clearance at Tema what it is are in the product itself — which is also why a generic international freight package never quite fits.

A gantry crane lifting a container above a stack in the yard.
Verified partners

Used and tested by operators who know the port.

Freetime has been run against real clearance work at Tema — real registers, real containers, real duty assessments — by forwarders and ship agents who do this every day. What they found is why it works the way it does.

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See it against your own register.

The quickest way to judge it is on your own files. Send us a month of your register and we will show you what the clock would have caught.