Supply Chain Action Points
Read this first — the conclusion, and the moves to make:
- Rebuild third-quarter quotes on all three announced lane groups on an all-in basis: base rate plus the applicable surcharge, with the unit recorded per line (per TEU or per container) and the effective date attached (pricing team, before the first July booking).
- For the hazardous Far East trades, confirm in writing that the surcharge is charged per TEU and obtain the published 40-foot rate; plan on $1,000 per 40-foot DG box as the third-quarter number (DG compliance owner, this week).
- Check every open booking dated July or later against the three lines; anything not yet confirmed is a candidate for consolidation or an alternate carrier where DG rules allow (booking desk, immediately).
- Set a withdrawal watch: if no further PSS announcements appear on these lanes by mid-August, treat the stack as peaked and re-quote accordingly (rate manager, weekly check).
- Put the 15 July effective date on the contract calendar for the Indian Subcontinent to North Europe, Mediterranean and North Africa trades, with a pre-15-July booking decision point for cargo that can sail earlier (procurement, by 8 July).
CMA CGM announced a series of new surcharges effective July 2026, including a $500/TEU hazardous cargo surcharge from the Far East to the Indian Ocean, South Africa and East Africa, and a $200/container Peak Season Surcharge from North Europe to the Middle East, Red Sea and Indian Subcontinent. A further $500/container PSS will apply from the Indian Subcontinent to North Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa from 15 July. The carrier said the measures support reliable service across its global network as peak-season demand builds.
The Analysis
CMA CGM has announced a package of surcharges effective July 2026. Three lines matter: a hazardous cargo surcharge of $500 per TEU from the Far East to the Indian Ocean, South Africa and East Africa; a peak season surcharge of $200 per container from North Europe to the Middle East, Red Sea and Indian Subcontinent; and a further $500 per container PSS from the Indian Subcontinent to North Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa starting 15 July. The carrier frames the measures as keeping service reliable across its network as peak-season demand builds.
Surcharge announcements are the easiest thing in a freight inbox to skim past. The amounts look small next to base rates, every line has its own lane, its own unit and its own effective date, and none of them move the published index. The invoice does not skim. It adds.
What follows takes the package apart line by line, explains why the hazardous surcharge is a different animal from a PSS, and flags the unit detail that quietly doubles the number on 40-foot equipment.
Take the three lines one at a time, starting with the hazmat charge: $500 per TEU from the Far East to the Indian Ocean, South Africa and East Africa. Read the unit carefully, because it is per TEU, not per container. A 40-foot dangerous-goods box counts as two TEUs, so that single box carries $1,000 in surcharge before any base rate is added. On a program of twenty 40-foot DG boxes a month, the line is worth $20,000 a month, or $240,000 a year, and nobody will headline it, because it hides inside a per-TEU figure that looks like a rounding error at container level.
The second line, $200 per container from North Europe to the Middle East, Red Sea and Indian Subcontinent, is a textbook PSS: modest, broad, and running across July. The third, $500 per container from the Indian Subcontinent to North Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa from 15 July, is the heaviest of the three on a per-box basis and lands mid-month rather than at the turn of the calendar.
Why a package now. Peak-season demand is the stated reason, and it is a defensible one: summer is when Asia outbound and Europe-Mediterranean volumes traditionally firm, and a PSS is how a carrier recovers the cost of the extra capacity it stands up for that window, whether chartered tonnage, additional equipment or the congestion fee the season brings at busy ports. The hazardous line runs on different logic. Dangerous-goods bookings consume handling capacity, documentation effort and segregated stowage, and the fee is charged per TEU because the cost driver is the volume of DG cargo, not the count of boxes. The surcharge column is also, more bluntly, where a carrier recovers margin without touching the base rate, because the base rate is what every shipper benchmarks against public indices and the surcharge column is not. A package announced on 25 June for early-July effectiveness is a carrier pricing its peak before the peak arrives.
Three distinct groups pay, and each pays differently. Far East hazardous shippers to the Indian Ocean rim, South and East Africa carry the $500 per TEU line, and their bill scales with box size, so a fleet of 40-foot DG containers doubles it. North Europe exporters to the Middle East, Red Sea and Indian Subcontinent pay $200 per box, which sounds tolerable until you set it against the lane: on a thin-margin trade with a base rate around $1,500, that surcharge is more than 13% of the freight cost. Indian Subcontinent exporters to North Europe, the Mediterranean and North Africa pay $500 per box from 15 July, the largest relative bite of the three. Buying style decides how the pain arrives: spot buyers and short-contract shippers take each surcharge from its effective date with no cap, while contract shippers see the same money at renewal, quietly priced into the next agreement.
Timing is tighter than it looks. The announcement came on 25 June for surcharges effective from July, which leaves under two weeks of notice on the earliest lines and about three weeks on the 15 July one. The surcharge attaches at booking, so cargo booked now for July sailings carries it, and once a booking is confirmed there is nothing to renegotiate. The window to route around the charge, by switching carrier, switching routing or consolidating, closes at booking confirmation, not at sailing date. Anything still unconfirmed for July is a live decision; anything confirmed is a cost you now own.
The line nobody will headline is the $500 per TEU hazardous surcharge, and the reason is that it is the least avoidable of the three. Dangerous goods are not portable cargo. DG acceptance is lane-specific and approval-bound: a booking that works Far East to Durban does not automatically work Far East to Mombasa, and you cannot shop the surcharge away the way you can with a PSS by changing forwarder or carrier, because the constraint is the port's acceptance and your own consignment approvals, not the tariff. Budget it as a fixed cost of the lane for the third quarter rather than a variable to haggle over. And keep the unit straight in the budget: per TEU means the planning number on 40-foot equipment is twice the headline.
The opposite case deserves a sentence, because surcharges are one-way doors. If the summer firming fails to arrive, the PSS lines are withdrawn quietly, one lane at a time, far more discreetly than they were announced; loud going in, silent coming out. The condition that decides which world you are in is actual loading on the announced lanes through July and August. If volumes hold, expect the stack to thicken again into the fourth-quarter peak. If they soften, the $200 and $500 lines go first, because they are the easiest to remove. Watch your carrier's weekly loading advisories rather than the announcement itself; the withdrawal, when it comes, will be a footnote.
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