How to price a cargo survey: marine surveyor rates explained

A cargo survey is paid per ton, not per hour. How fast a ship works decides the hours on site, not the size of the job, so the rate is built from the yearly cost of running your business plus the income you need, divided by the tons you expect to survey (or, for work outside the tonnage, the days you can really bill), then the items that vary per job are added. Waiting time and out-of-hours work get a stated rate of their own. We found no primary source that publishes market rates for cargo surveys, so this article teaches the method and quotes no amounts.

Who you are pricing for

The price is agreed with the party that appoints you. FOSFA notes that the seller of the commodity appoints the superintendent and pays the bill. Contracts then allocate some costs between buyer and seller. Gafta No. 100, for example, puts weighing at discharge at the buyer's expense and a final loading weight certificate from an approved superintendent at the seller's choice and expense (clause 15). Those clauses decide who bears the cost between the parties. They do not change who owes you the fee. Agree it with whoever instructs you, and read what an independent cargo surveyor does for how appointments work.

Per ton, day rate, fixed fee or both

• Per ton. The usual basis for a cargo survey. It follows the size of the cargo, not the speed of the ship: fast ships give few hours, and a company paid by the hour would not earn enough from them. State which tonnage counts, for example the bill of lading weight or the outturn, and the minimum charge per job.
• Day rate. Fits work whose length you do not control. It is simple to explain. Define the length of a day, for example hours on site, and what counts as part of a day.
• Fixed fee per survey. Fits a defined job, such as one draught survey or one sampling on a known vessel. The client knows the price in advance; the risk is yours if the job overruns.
• Both. A fixed fee for the defined scope, plus a stated hourly or daily charge for waiting, delays and work outside the agreed window. This is the structure that most needs writing down.

Building the day rate

Start from the fixed costs of staying in business. A per-ton rate is

rate per ton = (yearly costs + target income) ÷ tons you expect to survey in the year

and a day rate, for work that is not paid by the ton, is

day rate = (yearly costs + target income) ÷ billable days

Billable days are fewer than working days: travel, quotes, reports, training and gaps between jobs are unpaid unless you price them in. The arithmetic below uses fictional currency units, not euros or dollars, and is not a market rate. For a day rate: yearly costs of 20,000 units and a target income of 60,000 units over 100 billable days give (20,000 + 60,000) ÷ 100 = 800 units per day. If only 80 days are billable, the same numbers give 80,000 ÷ 80 = 1,000 units. For a rate per ton, the same 80,000 units over an expected 1,000,000 tons give 0.08 units per ton, and over 800,000 tons 0.10: the fewer tons come in, the more each has to carry.

Costs that belong in the yearly figure:

• Insurance. The Gafta Standard requires adequate and appropriate insurance against liability for operations. ITIC lists typical claim causes: a wrongly described quantity or condition of cargo, and a report sent to the wrong address. Price the cover you can show, not the cheapest.
• Equipment. The Gafta Standard requires a calibration programme for equipment the superintendent owns or controls (section 3.5). Include replacement, calibration and sampling gear.
• Recognition. Some costs are published: Gafta states on-site audits cost GBP 2,100, FOSFA lists the superintendent subscription at GBP 685 a year, and the RvA charges EUR 2,750 a year to an accredited body with no more than three people in accredited activities (2026). Which of them applies depends on your route, described in how to become a GAFTA approved superintendent.
• Training and software, and the time to keep records. The Gafta Standard requires records to be kept for at least seven years.

What goes on the quote

• Travel. Time and costs, and whether travel time is billed.
• Waiting time. Vessels wait. State when the clock starts and stops and the rate; a statement of facts is the evidence (statement of facts).
• Out-of-hours and weekend work. A surcharge stated as a percentage or a rate, agreed before the vessel arrives.
• Sampling and laboratory costs. Decide whether you pass them on at cost, and say so. Analysis is normally a separate appointment: under Gafta No. 100, clause 17, the parties appoint analysts from the Approved Register of Analysts unless otherwise agreed, so the laboratory invoices its own fee. If you advance laboratory or courier costs, list them on the quote at cost (sampling receipt and cargo sampling).
• Report time. The report is part of the work. Price the hours to write and check it, and say how many reports or copies are included.
• A second superintendent. Under Gafta Sampling Rules 4.2, the extra expenses of calling in another superintendent fall on the party that did not attend or refused to draw samples. That allocation is between the parties, so make your own terms say what happens to your fee if a job is cancelled or a party does not show.

What to put in writing before you accept

ITIC's claims experience points at the same gaps every time.

1. The scope. ITIC describes a surveyor engaged to report on stevedoring damage whose client's e-mail instructions could be read more widely; the claim was rejected, but a settlement contribution of about 10% of the amount claimed was still agreed, and ITIC's conclusion is that if the brief is restricted to a specific task, it must be clearly recorded. In another case ITIC notes that there was no document specifying what the consultants had been engaged to do, and that many disputes would be avoided if the scope were defined beforehand.
2. Precise instructions. Gafta Sampling Rules make the parties responsible for giving their appointed superintendents precise instructions (rule 4.1). Ask for them in writing.
3. Your standard terms, incorporated. ITIC publishes draft standard terms for surveyors and warns that terms on a website do not form part of your contract unless you incorporate them in it. Have a lawyer check whatever you adopt.
4. Who is the client and who pays, with payment terms.
5. Charges for waiting, out-of-hours work and cancellation, and what is passed on at cost.

Based on the working practice of our sector specialist: 25 years in the port, 20 of them as a cargo surveyor. A ship works at its own speed, so a company that is paid by the hour cannot plan on a year of fast ships; tonnage is the stable basis.

General advice: confirm every nomination by e-mail in five lines before the vessel berths: what you will do, for whom, at what rate, what is extra, and which terms apply. A one-page answer beats a good memory.

Run your survey company on FOSS

Quoting well is half the job; the other half is recording the hours. FOSS, the Field Operational Services System, covers a job from nomination to certificate: offline entry on board, built-in calculation methods as used in the sector, document generation in your own house style, a client portal where your client sees nomination, progress and documents, and an audit log of who entered which value. Run your survey company on FOSS, or get in touch.