A Gulf container costs roughly three and a half times a European one this month. Jebel Ali is USD 7,350 per 20GP against Rotterdam at USD 2,100. Buyers who last imported in 2023 assume one of those two numbers is a typo. Neither is. Below is the full table for nine Gulf destinations, what sits inside a CY to CY rate, and the four charges that turn a USD 7,350 quote into something else at the terminal.
Published rates: China to the Gulf, port to port
Loading from Shenzhen, Shanghai or Ningbo. All figures in USD, CY to CY — port to port, ocean freight, not door to door. War-risk surcharge is already included in every figure below — it is not added on top. Valid 30 days from the date above, subject to space and equipment availability.
| Destination | Country | 20GP | 40HQ | 40HQ over 20GP |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jebel Ali | UAE | 7,350 | 8,600 | +1,250 |
| Ajman | UAE | 8,450 | 9,700 | +1,250 |
| Sohar | Oman | 5,500 | 7,700 | +2,200 |
| Dammam | Saudi Arabia | 7,650 | 10,200 | +2,550 |
| Riyadh (dry port) | Saudi Arabia | 7,990 | 10,720 | +2,730 |
| Umm Qasr | Iraq | 8,150 | 10,500 | +2,350 |
| Hamad | Qatar | 8,650 | 11,850 | +3,200 |
| Shuwaikh | Kuwait | 8,650 | 11,850 | +3,200 |
| Bahrain | Bahrain | 8,650 | 11,850 | +3,200 |
Rates are ocean freight for a full container, port to port, with war-risk surcharge included. They exclude origin charges beyond the ocean leg, destination THC, customs entry, bonds, demurrage, detention and inland delivery, and any peak-season surcharge that applies to your sailing is advised at booking. For comparison, the same month's Europe lanes run USD 2,100 to Rotterdam and USD 2,050 to Hamburg, Antwerp or Felixstowe, per 20GP.
Four things the table tells you that the numbers alone do not
1. Sohar is not a typo, and it is 25% cheaper than Jebel Ali. USD 5,500 against USD 7,350 on a 20GP. Oman sits outside the busiest Gulf feeder loop and takes a different service string. If your consignee can receive at Sohar — or truck from Sohar into the UAE — the saving is large enough to be worth a phone call before you book Jebel Ali out of habit.
2. Hamad, Shuwaikh and Bahrain quote identically to the dollar. USD 8,650 and USD 11,850 on all three. Identical prices usually mean identical service: one vessel string calling all three on the same rotation. That has a practical consequence — when that string is full or rolled, all three destinations go short at the same time, so there is no point switching your booking from Qatar to Kuwait to find space.
3. Riyadh is only USD 340 more than Dammam on a 20GP. USD 7,990 against USD 7,650, for a box that travels inland to a dry port instead of stopping at the coast. If your buyer is in Riyadh, paying the extra USD 340 and letting the carrier handle the inland leg is usually cheaper than taking Dammam and arranging your own truck — that road leg plus the re-handling is rarely under USD 500.
4. Watch the 40HQ spread, not the 20GP price. Jebel Ali and Ajman add only USD 1,250 to go from 20GP to 40HQ. Hamad, Shuwaikh and Bahrain add USD 3,200. That gap is not a pricing quirk; it reflects how much of the cost is fixed port and feeder handling versus movable container cost. On light, bulky cargo — furniture, packaging, textiles — the UAE lanes are dramatically better value per cubic metre, because you buy nearly twice the volume for 17% more money.
Why a Gulf box costs three times a European one
Two structural reasons, and neither is going away quickly.
Fewer direct services. Europe has weekly direct calls into Rotterdam, Hamburg, Antwerp and Felixstowe from every major alliance. The Gulf is served by a smaller number of strings, several of which feed through a hub rather than calling every port direct. Fewer sailings means less competition per sailing, and less competition means the rate holds higher.
Risk pricing on the corridor. Carriers price the Red Sea and Gulf corridor with a risk component that European lanes do not carry in the same way. That component moves with events, not with your cargo. It is also the line most likely to change between quotation and sailing, which is why we date these rates to 30 days rather than publish them as standing prices.
The per-kg question
Half the enquiries we receive ask for a price per kilogram to Dubai. For a full container, there is no such number, and any forwarder who gives you one is converting a container rate into a per-kg figure using an assumed loading — which means the answer depends entirely on how well you pack.
Per-kg pricing exists in exactly two places:
- LCL (less than container load) is priced per W/M — revenue ton, being the greater of weight in tonnes or volume in cubic metres, with 1 CBM treated as 1,000 kg for sea freight.
- Air freight is priced per chargeable kg — the greater of actual weight and volumetric weight, where 1 CBM equals 167 kg.
If your cargo is under about 15 CBM, LCL is usually the right buy and we will quote it per W/M. Above that, a 20GP starts winning on cost, and the number you want is the one in the table above.
What CY to CY leaves out
CY to CY means the carrier's responsibility starts when the container is gated in at the origin terminal and ends when it is discharged at destination. Everything below is outside the rate, and on a Gulf shipment two or three of these routinely cost more than the difference between two forwarders' quotes:
- Destination THC — terminal handling at the port of discharge, billed per container.
- Customs entry — per B/L, plus any inspection or scanning fee if the container is selected.
- Bond or guarantee — required in several Gulf markets before release.
- Demurrage and detention — charged from the day free time at the terminal or on the container expires. Gulf free time is typically shorter than US or European free time, and the per-day rate is higher.
- Inland delivery — port to consignee's door, which for Iraq and inland Saudi Arabia is a material number, not a rounding error.
Door to door in the Gulf: not quoted
We are not publishing DDP door-to-door rates for the Gulf right now. Duty and VAT treatment differs sharply across these nine destinations, and the import-side requirements — who may act as importer, what registration the consignee needs, which goods need pre-approval — change often enough that a published all-in number would be wrong before it was useful. If you need delivered pricing, send the destination address, the commodity and the consignee's registration status and we will quote it against a specific sailing.
What we do publish is the port-to-port number, because that part is stable enough to put in writing for 30 days.
Questions buyers ask before booking
Rate basis and what was checked4 notes — how these figures were built
- Source of the numbers: our own carrier quotations for the lanes listed, loading Shenzhen, Shanghai or Ningbo, issued for November 2026. Not an index, not a market average.
- Basis: FCL, CY to CY (port to port), ocean freight, war-risk surcharge included. 20GP and 40HQ. Excludes origin handling beyond the ocean leg, destination THC, customs entry, bonds, demurrage, detention and inland delivery.
- Validity: 30 days from 3 November 2026, subject to space and equipment availability at the time of booking. Rates on this corridor move with risk pricing, not only with capacity. If you are reading this after that window has closed, treat the table as the last checked figure rather than a current price, and ask us for the sailing-date rate.
- What we deliberately left out: transit times per port, because they change with each string rotation, and DDP door-to-door rates for the Gulf, because duty and import-registration rules differ across these nine destinations. Both are quoted per shipment on request.
About this page. Written and maintained by Yingdong Global Forwarding, Guangzhou Yingdong Global Forwarding Co., Ltd. These are the rates we actually quote from Shenzhen, Shanghai and Ningbo, published so that a buyer can size a shipment before making contact. They are not a booking confirmation, and they are not an index. If a number here is out of date when you read it, tell us and we will correct it — the date at the top is the date the figures were checked.