China-to-U.S. Freight Rates are Near Pandemic Highs Again

18 September, 2026.

War-driven fuel costs are pushing China-to-U.S. shipping rates toward pandemic-era highs, placing pressure on margins, inventory planning and working capital before the increase reaches a retail price.

Ocean freight rates from China to the United States are climbing toward levels last seen during the supply-chain disruption that followed the pandemic, which brings a familiar problem back into focus: transportation costs can alter the economics of goods that were purchased, priced and planned for months before those costs moved, and the figures now sit close to the record $11,900 rate of January 2022, with Xeneta reporting $10,948 per 40-foot container on the East Coast route and Drewry’s Shanghai-to-New York index rising nearly 7% in one week to $10,394. Reuters[money.usnews]

The driver is the conflict involving the United States, Israel and Iran, since attacks on oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and disruption to Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline have raised the cost and uncertainty surrounding oil supply, and that is already visible in marine fuel prices, where the global 20-port average for very-low-sulphur fuel oil reached $901.50 per metric ton on Thursday against $543.50 on February 27. Reuters[money.usnews]

Because carriers pass those costs through to shippers in surcharges and freight rates, transportation begins to affect purchasing decisions made months earlier, and Reuters reported that China-to-U.S. East Coast spot rates have more than quadrupled since the war began on February 28, which means inventory bought when freight was far cheaper can arrive under a very different cost structure from the one used to set its expected selling price and margin. Reuters[money.usnews]

China’s Golden Week holiday is adding to that pressure, since the early-October factory closures concentrate production and shipping into the weeks before the break and push importers to secure vessel space before schedules slow, and Xeneta’s chief analyst, Peter Sand, said the seasonal increase is being driven by shippers including Walmart and Amazon moving goods out of China before factories close, which leaves higher fuel costs and a compressed shipping window pressing on the same trade lane at once. Reuters[money.usnews]

Since freight forms part of landed cost, a sharp increase in the price of moving a container changes the margin attached to every product travelling that route, particularly when the purchase was committed before transportation costs moved higher, so the additional cost has to be absorbed through a lower margin, reflected in a higher selling price, accounted for through a smaller order or built into the economics of the next sourcing decision, and those choices narrow further when demand is price-sensitive or when seasonal stock has to arrive inside a fixed selling period.

The same pressure reaches delivery schedules, since delayed departures and booking rollovers can affect warehouse planning, retail allocation, production schedules and customer commitments at the same time, turning a disruption that begins with a vessel into a wider planning problem, and APL Logistics has warned that current ocean-freight constraints are affecting inventory positioning, planning and service reliability as longer and less predictable transit times move through the wider supply chain. APL Logistics

Longer lead times also increase the working capital tied up in moving goods, particularly when extra inventory is needed to maintain availability while shipments sit in transit, and while holding more stock protects against delays it also raises storage costs and markdown risk if demand weakens or shipping conditions improve sooner than expected, which is why APL Logistics has highlighted SKU-level forecasting, network visibility and scenario planning as ways to find where changing freight conditions are most likely to affect inventory and transportation decisions. APL Logistics

The extent of the exposure depends on the economics of the products moving through the network and the alternatives available when conditions change, since higher-margin goods with flexible delivery dates have more room to absorb an increase while lower-margin products in competitive markets have considerably less, and dependence on a single supplier or region makes a freight increase harder to absorb when alternatives are limited, whereas multiple sourcing options provide more flexibility when future purchases are considered.

The current rise may ease after Golden Week if demand normalises, although rates could remain elevated if fuel costs and disruption across key shipping routes persist, and rather than assuming a single direction for rates, the more useful exercise is to ask how the underlying economics respond if conditions continue, which products become difficult to sell profitably, how much extra inventory would be required if transit times increase, how quickly another supplier could be brought in and how much working capital could be committed without creating pressure elsewhere.

Those questions lead back to decisions made well before the disruption, when the supplier was selected, the inventory was committed, the price may have been set, and the delivery promise may already have been given, and because many of those decisions are difficult to reverse once transportation costs change, the effect of a freight increase can outlast the initial shock, which is why the cost of moving a container matters less on its own than how it interacts with the commitments already in place by the time the goods reach the customer.