China-built US Vessels Exempted from Retaliatory Port Fees

Beijing has eased some of its moves to impose retaliatory fees on American vessels calling at Chinese ports, exempting ships built in China that are U.S.-owned or -operated from paying the special port fees.

According to the Ministry of Transport’s Water Transport Bureau on Tuesday, unladen vessels — which refer to vessels without any cargoes that are owned or operated by U.S. entities — entering China shipyards for repairs are also exempted from paying such fees.

The latest exemptions come after the ministry announced on Friday that China would impose special port service fees on U.S.-owned and operated vessels from Oct. 14, where ships that are subject to the special port fees would have to pay a per-voyage rate of 400 yuan per net ton ($56/nt). The levy is set to rise to 640 yuan/nt from April 17, 2026, 880 yuan/nt from April 17, 2027, and 1,120 yuan/nt from April 17, 2028.

This was in response to a similar move by the U.S., which earlier announced plans to impose tiered fees on China-built, -owned or -operated ships calling at its harbors starting Tuesday.

Analysts said that although U.S.-domiciled companies, producers and traders export huge quantities of NGLs to China, and can be thus associated linearly with cargoes, most of the ships that carry these barrels are unlikely to be owned by U.S. enterprises or fly the U.S. flag. Almost none are built in the U.S.

–Reporting by Thomas Cho, tcho@opis.com; Editing by Mei-Hwen Wong, mwong@opis.com