Time charter equivalent

The standard daily-earnings measure for a voyage-employed ship: gross voyage revenue minus voyage costs (bunkers, port charges, canal tolls), divided by the round-voyage days. The result, in US dollars per day, restates a lump-sum freight or Worldscale fixture as a daily figure directly comparable to a time-charter hire rate. TCE is the number owners and analysts use to rank voyages and segments on a like-for-like basis, because it strips out the differing distances, cargo sizes, and cost structures of each trade.