Sea Freight Through Fremantle

Where your container actually lands

Almost all of Western Australia’s container trade comes through Fremantle, so if your goods are in a container, that is where they are landing. The port runs as two harbours. The Inner Harbour at Fremantle takes the containers, along with motor vehicle imports, livestock exports and general cargo. The Outer Harbour at Kwinana, about 22 kilometres to the south, is the bulk port, handling grain, fertiliser, petroleum, alumina and mineral sands.

What happens to your container

The customs entry goes in off your documents before the vessel berths, rather than after the box has landed. A container that is already cleared can be collected as soon as it comes available. One that is not sits on the wharf building up storage charges, and that is a cost nobody quoted you.

Which is why we ask for the supplier invoice and the packing list as early as you can get them, not when the ship is a day out of Fremantle. From 1 September to 30 April there is the stink bug season on top of that, which catches goods shipped from a long list of countries. We have set out what applies this season and which date decides it.

Once it is released we book the slot, collect it from the wharf and deliver it anywhere in Perth or across to the eastern states, then get the empty back before detention starts.

Getting containers out of the port

Roughly a quarter of the containers moving through the Inner Harbour leave by rail rather than by road, out of the North Quay Rail Terminal, which runs five to seven trains a day carrying between 400 and 700 boxes. The rest go by truck through the marshalling area at Rous Head. Which one suits your freight depends on where it is going and how fast you need it, so it is worth asking rather than assuming the truck is the only option.

Tell us the vessel, the container number and where it has to go, and we will take it from there.