South Africa ocean freight by the numbers
Last updated:
Shipzy samples 29 port-to-port lanes for South Africa, on which 6 ocean carriers publish schedules, connecting 16 countries.
The fastest scheduled transit is 5 days, the median scheduled transit is 33 days, and 9 in 10 sampled sailings complete within 57 days.
38% of the 290 sampled sailings are direct; the remainder route via a transshipment hub.
The VGM cutoff falls a median of 4 days before departure, across 223 sampled sailings.
Figures describe 290 sailings sampled from 6 carrier APIs, last refreshed 11 September 2026.
Cutoff lead times in South Africa
| Cutoff | Median days before departure | Sailings sampled |
|---|---|---|
| VGM cutoff | 4 | 223 |
| Dangerous goods cutoff | 4 | 146 |
| Documentation cutoff | 4 | 207 |
| Terminal cutoff | 3 | 76 |
| Cargo cutoff | 3 | 157 |
| Reefer cutoff | 2 | 137 |
| Port cutoff | 2 | 101 |
Most-sampled trade lanes from South Africa
| Partner country | Lanes sampled |
|---|---|
| US | 5 |
| CN | 4 |
| AE | 2 |
| AU | 2 |
| DE | 2 |
How these numbers are measured
Figures come from the ocean schedule APIs Shipzy integrates with: CMA CGM, COSCO, Hapag-Lloyd, MSC, Maersk, ZIM. They describe the lanes Shipzy samples, not every sailing serving South Africa.
The nightly sync sweeps nine global hub ports plus a set of regional template lanes, storing up to three sailings per lane, and refreshes one country per night. So coverage leans towards intercontinental routings, and the as-of date above can be several weeks old for smaller markets.
Transit figures are medians rather than averages, so a few multi-transshipment routings cannot distort them. Cutoff lead times exclude carrier-estimated cutoffs and any lead outside a 0–21 day window. Emissions figures are not published here, because only one carrier reports measured CO2; the rest are modelled from transit time and would restate transit days as emissions.
- Carriers sampled: Derived from ocean schedules published by 6 carrier APIs, as of 11 September 2026.
- Of global fleet capacity: Sum of each sampled carrier’s share of global container capacity. Describes the carriers, not this country’s market share.
- Port-to-port lanes: Derived from ocean schedules published by 6 carrier APIs, as of 11 September 2026.
- Countries connected: Derived from ocean schedules published by 6 carrier APIs, as of 11 September 2026.
- Fastest transit: Derived from ocean schedules published by 6 carrier APIs, as of 11 September 2026.
- Median transit: Median of 290 scheduled transit times. Median, not mean — a few multi-transshipment routings would distort an average.
- Direct sailings: Share of 290 sampled sailings with no transshipment. Carriers count legs slightly differently, so treat as indicative.
- Named services: Derived from ocean schedules published by 6 carrier APIs, as of 11 September 2026.
- Vessels seen: Derived from ocean schedules published by 6 carrier APIs, as of 11 September 2026. Counted by vessel name, so spelling variants may inflate this slightly.