Liner freight is a monopolistic price calculated according to Liner's Freight Tariff which varied according to different liner companies or vessel companies. The Liner's Freight Tariff is defined according to different stowage factor, different characters, different values and different routes of various commodities. Liner freight includes basic rate and surcharge (if regulated). Therefore, only the basic rates are investigated from some ports while they are not always the complete unit price for calculating the actual freight.

Basic rate means the basic freight charged according to each unit (for example---ton). In English explanation, it could be described as the rate charged necessarily for each cargo between ports within the routine, based on which charge the additional fees. The basic rate could be divided into Grade Rate, Commodity Rate, Ad valorem Rate, Peculiar Rate and Average Rate.

Surcharge means, in order to keep the stability of the basic rate in a certain period and reflect the shipping cost of each cargo in each port, besides the basic rate, Liner Company charges various extra fees to recuperate the losses. They mainly include: (1) bunker surcharge. It is charged when the fuel price rises suddenly.

(2)Surcharge on currency devaluation. It is charged according to the percentage of the basic freight by the ship-owner when the currencies devaluates.

(3)Surcharge on transferring the vessel. It is charged by the ship-owner when, all cargoes that ship to non-basic port need to be sent to the port of destination by transferring the vessel. It includes transferring fee and the secondary freight.

(4)Surcharge on the direct shipping. It is charged when, the cargoes that send to the non-basic port reach to a certain quantity, the vessel company could arrange sail to this port directly instead of transferring the vessel.

(5)Surcharge on overweight, over-length or over-large. It is charged when the gross weight, cubage or length of a cargo go beyond or reach to the standard.

(6)Surcharge on the port. It is charged because of the poor condition and the low efficiency of some ports or because of some other reasons.

(7)Surcharge on the busy port. It is charged because some of the ports are busy so as to result in over-long berthing time of the vessel.

(8)Surcharge on choosing ports. It is charged by the ship-owner when, client can not choose the specified unloading port thus requires choosing one from the two or more ports proposed in advance.

(9)Surcharge on changing unloading port. It is charged when, the cargo-owner wants to change the port and when he gets the permitting from the authorities (like customs) as well as the ship-owner.

(10)Surcharge on bypass the route. It is charged by the ship-owner when, the normal sea-route is jammed so that the vessel have to bypass the route to reach the port of destination.