Demurrage Time Bar Calculator: Claim Deadline
Compute the date a demurrage claim must be presented by, from completion of discharge and the charter party's time-bar period, with the days remaining and the fully-documented requirement that decides most time-bar disputes.
Formula, assumptions, and limits
A demurrage time bar extinguishes the claim unless it is presented, usually fully documented, within the charter’s period of the trigger event. To find the deadline, add the charter’s time-bar period, commonly 90 days, to the completion-of-discharge date:
Trigger date - completion of discharge in the common drafting; some clauses run from completion of final discharge on multi-port voyages, or from the event giving rise to the claim; bespoke terms occasionally pick other operational markers. Bar period - the clause’s days, calendar days unless it says otherwise.
The arithmetic is trivial and the disputes are not, because the clause bites on everything around the addition. The trigger must be read from the clause, not assumed: completion at which port, and completion of what. The presentation requirement decides most fights: “fully and correctly documented” wording demands the listed documents inside the period, and tribunals have held claims barred where the claim arrived in time missing one listed paper. Ninety days is the common period in tanker forms and dry-cargo riders alike, but the printed dry forms mostly carry no demurrage bar at all, bespoke fixtures agree shorter and longer, and the only safe number is the one in your recap.
The calculator treats the period as calendar days ending at the close of the deadline day, the usual construction. It does not model clause-specific refinements: business-day definitions, time-zone questions on where the deadline falls, separate bars for different claim types on the same fixture, or the interplay with the general contractual and statutory limitation regimes that survive after a missed bar kills the demurrage claim itself.
How to use this calculator
- Enter the completion-of-discharge date from the statement of facts.
- Enter the charter’s time-bar period in days.
- Read the deadline and the days remaining from today.
- Assemble the clause’s listed documents well inside the period; a claim presented in time but incomplete is the classic way to lose.
The pattern across standard forms
| Form / terms | Demurrage bar | Presentation standard |
|---|---|---|
| GENCON (printed forms) | None in the printed text | Riders commonly impose 60 to 120 days |
| Asbatankvoy (as commonly amended) | 90 days by rider | Riders commonly impose fully documented |
| Shellvoy 6 | 90 days (cl. 15(3)) | Fully and correctly documented; a separate 60-day notification leg runs first |
| BPVOY-form terms | 90 days | Fully documented, listed papers |
| Bespoke riders | 30 to 180 days | As drafted; read literally |
The table shows the published pattern, not your contract: tanker company terms are amended voyage to voyage, riders override printed forms, and the period plus the document list in the governing words are the only ones that matter. Where the printed form and the rider disagree, the rider usually wins, and where two periods could apply, a prudent desk diarizes the shorter.
The discipline behind the date
A demurrage desk runs on this date in reverse. The laytime statement takes days to build (SOFs from two ports, counting rules applied, agents chased for signed copies), so the working deadline is weeks before the legal one. Claims teams that diarize the bar at completion of discharge, assemble the file at fifty percent of the period, and present with a margin survive document gaps; teams that discover the clause at day 80 do not. The days-remaining figure this page shows is the management number: when it drops below the time the file takes to build, the claim is already at risk.
What survives a fallen bar is narrower than desks hope. The demurrage claim itself is normally gone, however strong its merits, and tribunals enforce that result precisely because certainty is the clause’s purpose. Related claims under different clauses (deviation, detention outside laytime, damages for failure to load) may live on their own limitation regimes, and the charterer’s deductions and counterclaims are rarely barred by a clause drafted for the owner’s claim; none of that resurrects the demurrage itself.
The other discipline is reading the clause once, properly, at fixture time. Bars hide in rider clauses and incorporated terms, periods vary between the printed form and the rider, and a charterer’s standard terms can impose a different regime than the owner’s form assumed. The settlement the deadline protects is computed in the laytime and demurrage calculator; this page exists so that number survives long enough to be paid.
Common errors
- Running the bar from the wrong trigger. Completion of discharge at the final port is the usual event, but bespoke clauses pick other markers, and multi-port drafting varies; the clause’s words govern.
- Notifying instead of presenting. A message that a claim will follow does not stop a fully-documented bar; the documents themselves must arrive inside the period.
- Missing one listed document. Time-bar clauses are construed strictly; in time but incomplete is out of time.
- Assuming 90 days. It is the common period, not a rule; bespoke fixtures agree 30 to 180, and a desk that diarizes the assumption instead of the clause will eventually find the short one.
About This Demurrage Time Bar Calculator
The time bar is the sharpest clause in the voyage charter: it can kill a six-figure demurrage claim over a missing log sheet. This calculator is for owners, operators, and claims teams who need the deadline on the calendar the day discharge completes: it takes the completion date and the charter’s period and returns the deadline with a live days-remaining count.
The computation follows the usual construction, calendar days from the trigger, while the page around it carries what actually decides time-bar disputes: trigger identification, the fully-documented presentation standard, and the reverse-planning discipline that turns a legal deadline into a working one. The urgency readout grades the days remaining against the time a documented file realistically takes to assemble, because the dangerous state is not the missed deadline, it is the comfortable-looking forty days with two SOFs still unsigned. The claim the deadline protects is built in the laytime and demurrage calculator and, for multi-call voyages, the multi-port reversible calculator.
Further reading
Frequently asked questions
- What is a demurrage time bar?
- A charter-party clause extinguishing the demurrage claim unless it is presented, usually with full supporting documents, within a stated period of a trigger event, most commonly completion of discharge. Miss it and the claim normally dies regardless of merit: the bar operates as a condition precedent to the claim.
- How long is a typical demurrage time bar?
- Ninety days from completion of discharge is the common pattern, set by tanker forms like Shellvoy and by the riders that dry-cargo fixtures bolt onto printed forms such as GENCON, whose printed text carries no demurrage bar of its own. Bespoke clauses agree 30 to 180 days, and triggers vary; the only safe source is your fixture.
- What documents must be presented within the time bar?
- What the clause lists, read literally. The usual set is the demurrage claim or invoice, the laytime statement, the statement of facts, and the notice of readiness, with tanker terms often adding port and pumping logs. Tribunals have dismissed claims presented in time but missing a listed document.
- Does the time bar apply to despatch too?
- Usually not: time-bar clauses are drafted around the owner's demurrage claim. Despatch is the charterer's money, deducted or invoiced the other way, and is rarely subjected to the same presentation regime; the charter's words decide.
In short
Compute the demurrage claim deadline from completion of discharge and the charter's time bar, with days remaining and the documentation reminder.