Shipping Costs US to Asia: Who Profits?

Shipping costs US to Asia depend on what is being moved, which way it is going and which ship carries it. As of the second week of October 2026, container rates from Asia to the United States sit near $8,000 to $10,000 per 40-foot box, according to Drewry and the Baltic Exchange. The price of sending a box the other way, from the US to Asia, is far lower, at about $806. Meanwhile crude tankers carrying US oil to China are earning record sums, and US grain exporters are paying more to reach Asian buyers. This report separates those lanes, shows the dated figures, and looks at who is profiting and who is paying.

Key Takeaways

Direction matters. Drewry put Shanghai to Los Angeles at $7,624 per 40ft container on Oct. 8, 2026, but Los Angeles to Shanghai at only $806. Most headline “transpacific” rates describe the Asia-to-US leg.
The main driver is the Strait of Hormuz crisis. UKMTO said on Oct. 9 that traffic through the strait remained about 75% below pre-conflict levels. Higher fuel, war-risk insurance, rerouting and port congestion are all pushing costs up.
Tanker owners are the clearest winners. The Baltic Exchange’s US Gulf to China VLCC route (TD22) was assessed at $79.6 million per voyage on Oct. 9, equal to about $637,675 per day on a round-trip basis.
Container carriers are mixed. Maersk’s Q2 operating profit (EBIT) rose to $1.6 billion from $845 million, but Hapag-Lloyd’s fell to $176 million as it absorbed about $600 million in Middle East-related costs.
US exporters pay on bulk, oil and air. USDA data show ocean freight for soybeans from the Minneapolis area to Shanghai via the Gulf was $67.58 per metric ton in Q2 2026, up about 48% from a year earlier.

Which “US to Asia” Lane Are We Talking About?

Shipping indices measure specific lanes, and the two directions of the Pacific behave very differently. The big increases are on the eastbound transpacific lane, which carries Asian-made goods to American ports. That is a cost mostly borne by US importers and, eventually, consumers. The westbound lane, which carries US exports to Asia, is a backhaul. Ships return to Asia with plenty of spare space, so container prices are low even in a tight market.

That does not mean US exporters are insulated. Grain, crude oil, LNG and chemicals move on different ship types with their own price cycles, and several of those have jumped. Air freight out of the US and Asia is also up. This report covers each in turn and labels the direction every time.

Container Rates: Where Shipping Costs Stand in October 2026

The table below uses figures published in the week of Oct. 5 to 9, 2026. Sources use different methods, so numbers for the same lane do not match exactly.

Lane and direction	Rate	Date and source
Shanghai to Los Angeles (Asia to US)	$7,624 per 40ft, down 3% on the week	Oct. 8, Drewry WCI
Shanghai to New York (Asia to US)	$10,220 per 40ft, down 2%	Oct. 8, Drewry WCI
Los Angeles to Shanghai (US to Asia)	$806 per 40ft, up 2%	Oct. 8, Drewry WCI
China/East Asia to US West Coast	$8,106 per FEU, down $228 on the week	Oct. 9, Baltic Exchange (FBX01)
China/East Asia to US East Coast	$9,606 per FEU, unchanged	Oct. 9, Baltic Exchange (FBX03)
Far East to US West Coast, market average	$8,336 per FEU	Oct. 7, Xeneta, via FreightWaves
Far East to US East Coast, market average	$11,512 per FEU	Oct. 7, Xeneta, via FreightWaves

Drewry’s composite World Container Index was $4,351 per 40ft container on Oct. 8, down 2% from $4,434 the week before. A data mirror of Drewry’s table showed the composite 164% above a year earlier and Shanghai to Los Angeles 250% above, though readers should check the annual figures against Drewry’s own page.

By simple division, the Asia-to-Los Angeles rate is roughly nine and a half times the Los Angeles-to-Shanghai rate. That ratio is our own calculation from the two Drewry figures, not a published statistic.

The rate gap with pre-crisis levels is large. ContainerSignal, summarizing a Xeneta update, reported Far East to US West Coast spot rates 344% above their pre-Hormuz baseline of Feb. 28. Xeneta’s chief analyst Peter Sand said in the FreightWaves report that rates “are still elevated and the trend is still downward,” though he was speaking about Europe-bound trades.

Why Costs Rose: Hormuz, Fuel, Insurance and Congestion

The Hormuz crisis. Freightos described the Strait of Hormuz as functionally closed since the end of February, when the war in Iran began, in an analysis published earlier this year. The UK Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) reported on Oct. 9 that vessel traffic remained about 75% below pre-conflict levels and recorded 11 attacks in the week. Our own coverage of the escalation is in Hormuz tanker attacks surge as Iran vows to close the Oman route and Trump’s Iran strike pledge.

Fuel. Freightos reported that carriers responded with emergency fuel surcharges of $200 to $500 per container on many lanes. USDA recorded US diesel at $6.382 per gallon in the week ending Sept. 28, 262.8 cents above a year earlier. IATA’s jet fuel monitor, cited by the TAC Index, showed jet fuel up 108% year on year on Oct. 2.

Insurance. Insurance Business reported that war-risk premiums for exposed vessels reached as much as 10% of hull value, against about 0.125% before the crisis. Most US-Asia container voyages do not enter the Gulf, so this cost falls mainly on Gulf-linked cargo and tanker trades, but it raises costs across the system.

Congestion and blank sailings. Freightos cited Sea Intelligence as estimating that port congestion ties up more than 8% of global container capacity and could take up to ten months to unwind. Drewry counted 34 blank sailings planned across the main East-West trades from Oct. 12 to Nov. 15, or 5% of 713 scheduled sailings, with 32% of them on the eastbound transpacific.

Panama Canal. USDA’s Oct. 1 Grain Transportation Report said US Gulf soybeans bound for China were going around the Cape of Good Hope because the canal was allowing 32 transits a day against a normal 36 to 40. Freightos reported that the canal authority plans to restore ten daily Neopanamax transits and a 49-foot draft in mid-October.

Tariffs and Port Fees: What Is on Hold

The US Trade Representative’s Section 301 action on China’s maritime, logistics and shipbuilding sectors, which includes port fees on Chinese-built and operated ships, is suspended. The USTR notice says the suspension runs from Nov. 10, 2025 through 11:59 p.m. ET on Nov. 9, 2026. Freightos wrote on Sept. 30 that a Trump-Xi meeting produced a two-month extension of the wider US-China truce, and that this “likely” postpones the port fees, though the USTR had not yet issued an official deferral. Unless USTR publishes a new notice, the fees would be able to resume after Nov. 9. We explain the broader US-China bargain in Rare Earth Truce Explained and the Xi-Trump summit coverage.

The same Freightos update said both sides would cut tariffs on about $30 billion of each other’s imports to most-favored-nation levels, with China’s list made up mostly of agricultural products and commodities. Freightos reported that the US Treasury Secretary said the extension was limited to two months because China still needs to fulfill earlier commitments to buy US agricultural goods.

Who Is Profiting From Higher Shipping Costs?

Tanker owners: the biggest winners

The Baltic Exchange’s Oct. 9 round-up put US Gulf to China VLCC route TD22 at $79,611,111 per voyage, up another $24.8 million in a week, which the Baltic converted to a round-trip earning of $637,675 per day. Middle East Gulf to China (TD3C) earned $1,412,594 per day. Reuters reported that a two-million-barrel US Gulf to Asia charter reached about $80 million, about $40 a barrel by our arithmetic, and that Asian refiners were turning to cheaper supplies such as UAE Murban. In other words, tanker owners are collecting large sums even as the high freight cost is hurting US crude’s competitiveness.

Container carriers: strong, but not uniform

Maersk reported on Aug. 13 that Q2 revenue rose 20% to $15.8 billion and EBIT rose to $1.6 billion from $845 million. Ocean EBIT was $935 million versus $229 million, and the average loaded freight rate rose 22%. It raised full-year guidance to underlying EBITDA of $10.5 to $12.5 billion.
Hapag-Lloyd reported Q2 group EBITDA of $829 million but EBIT of $176 million, as roughly $600 million in Middle East-related costs offset higher rates. Its average freight rate was $1,475 per TEU, up 9%.
ZIM reported Q2 net income of $64 million, up from $24 million, and an average rate of $1,590 per TEU. Hapag-Lloyd has agreed to buy ZIM for $35 per share, with closing targeted for Q4 2026.
Taiwan’s carriers: JCtrans reported Evergreen’s Q2 net profit at NT$16.03 billion (up 46%), Wan Hai’s at NT$11.5 billion (up 972%) and Yang Ming’s at NT$5.73 billion (up 482%). First-half results were mixed, with Evergreen down 36% and Yang Ming down 18%.
COSCO Shipping Holdings reported first-half profit attributable to shareholders of RMB 13.39 billion, down from RMB 17.53 billion.

Higher rates did not mean uniformly higher profit. Fuel, rerouting and insurance costs absorbed part of the increase, and first-half comparisons look weaker than the second quarter alone.

Terminals, forwarders, insurers and shipbuilders

Maersk’s Terminals unit reported Q2 revenue up 11% to $1.4 billion with an EBIT margin of 31.6%, and its Logistics & Services EBIT rose to $217 million from $175 million. Hapag-Lloyd’s terminal segment earned a much smaller $21 million EBIT. Insurers are not clear winners: Insurance Business said the Hormuz war-risk market “isn’t printing money,” and Lloyd’s reported a £1.9 billion first-half underwriting profit that included £1.4 billion of Middle East conflict losses. Korean shipbuilders are seeing a boom, with HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering reporting 162 vessels worth $18.08 billion booked by August, according to Aju Press, though that reflects both the tanker surge and fleet renewal.

Who Is Paying?

US farmers and grain exporters. USDA’s Oct. 1 report put grain freight from the US Gulf to Japan at $76.00 per metric ton and from the Pacific Northwest at $37.00 for the week ending Sept. 24. For soybeans, total transportation from Minneapolis to Shanghai via the Gulf was $133.30 per ton in Q2 2026, up 32.8% year on year, and made up 24.9% of the $535.03 landed cost.

US oil and energy exporters. Reuters said high freight is making US crude less attractive to Asian refiners. LNG is a counterexample: the Baltic’s US Gulf to Japan LNG charter rate fell $4,200 on the week to $52,100 per day on Oct. 9, as ship supply outstripped demand.

US importers and consumers. Asia-to-US container rates feed into import costs. Xeneta data reported by FreightWaves show the East Coast premium over the West Coast at more than $3,000 per FEU.

Air cargo users. The TAC Index’s global air freight index was up 25.5% year on year in the week to Oct. 5, and Freightos put Far East to North America air rates at about $6.80 per kg on Sept. 30.

Our Take

This section is analysis, not reporting. The data suggest the label “shipping costs surge” hides two different markets. On the container trade, the pain sits with importers on the Asia-to-US leg, while US exporters see low box rates and high costs on bulk, tanker and air services. The profit picture also looks uneven: tanker owners are posting extraordinary earnings, while liner companies are being squeezed between higher rates and higher costs. The key tests are whether the Hormuz disruption continues and whether the USTR port fees return on Nov. 10. A long disruption would likely keep ship owners’ earnings high, while a quick reopening could reduce them.

What to Watch

Nov. 9, 2026: the end of the USTR Section 301 suspension unless extended.
Drewry’s weekly WCI each Thursday and Freightos FBX figures for signs of a post-Golden Week rebound.
Hapag-Lloyd’s planned acquisition of ZIM, targeted for Q4.
Panama Canal transit levels in mid-October and any El Niño-related restrictions.
Further tanker attacks and UKMTO traffic counts for Hormuz.

Shipping Costs US to Asia Surge: Who Is Profiting and Who Pays