Clean Truck Fee: Rates, Exemptions, and PortCheck Payment

The Clean Truck Fee is a per-container charge at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach: $10 for each loaded twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) and $20 for a container longer than twenty feet. Cargo owners pay it, not drivers or trucking companies, and it applies only to loaded containers moved through the marine terminals by a conventional drayage truck. Loads carried by zero-emission trucks are permanently exempt, and revenue funds the ports’ push toward an all-zero-emission drayage fleet by 2035.¹

How Much the Fee Is and When It Applies

The rate is $10 per loaded TEU and $20 per loaded container over twenty feet in length. The two ports jointly adopted this rate in March 2020 under the Clean Air Action Plan, and it has not changed since.²

Only loaded containers moved by truck trigger the fee. A container that travels in or out of the port complex by on-dock rail without touching a drayage truck generates no charge. Inter-terminal moves within the port complex are also excluded.³

The trigger is not engine age. A loaded container hauled by any non-exempt truck generates the fee, whether the engine is diesel, natural gas, or something in between. What matters is the truck’s emissions status, not its model year.

Who Pays, and Who Legally Cannot Be Charged

The fee is assessed on the cargo owner or the cargo owner’s authorized agent. The port tariff prohibits shifting the charge onto truck drivers, and the ports treat any deduction from a driver’s pay as a violation.¹

Drivers and owner-operators who see the Clean Truck Fee deducted by a motor carrier, broker, or other party can report the deduction to the Port of Los Angeles by email, phone, or in person, including anonymously. The fee was designed to sit with the party that benefits from moving the cargo, and the port enforces that placement.

Exemptions That Zero Out the Fee

Exemptions attach to the truck hauling the container. If your load rides on an exempt truck, you owe nothing. Two categories qualify:

Battery-electric and hydrogen fuel cell trucks are permanently exempt. There is no expiration on this exemption and no registration deadline attached to it.²
Trucks certified to the optional low-NOx standard under the California Air Resources Board’s Heavy-Duty Omnibus Regulation have a temporary exemption through December 31, 2027. To qualify, the truck must have been registered in the Ports Drayage Truck Registry by December 31, 2022. Trucks that missed that registration window do not qualify, no matter what emissions hardware they carry.¹

The tariff also carves out cargo shipped under contract to the U.S. military or Department of Defense, and prototype or advanced-technology demonstration trucks operating under a port contract or license.³

How Cargo Owners Pay Through PortCheck

Payment runs through PortCheck, the third-party online system that collects the fee for both ports. Users register on the PortCheck site, submit container numbers for their loaded shipments, and pay by credit card, electronic check, or a pre-established credit account. Once payment clears, PortCheck signals the terminals that the container is cleared to move.⁴

Timing matters. If the terminal system still shows an outstanding balance when the truck arrives at the gate, the load can be placed on hold. PortCheck maintains a troubleshooting page for cases where a hold persists after payment has cleared, so keeping transaction confirmations on hand helps resolve gate delays quickly.

Where the Revenue Goes

Collections have been substantial. As of January 2025, the Port of Long Beach had collected $110 million in fee revenue.⁵ The Port of Los Angeles reported over $130 million collected by April 2025.

In May 2025, the Port of Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners approved roughly $120 million in Clean Truck Fund spending through fiscal year 2027.² The plan directs money into three main channels:

Zero-emission truck purchase vouchers of $100,000 per truck for fleets of 20 or fewer trucks, and $75,000 per truck for fleets of 21 to 49 trucks. Smaller operators receive a larger subsidy on the reasoning that they have less access to capital.
$12.5 million toward public charging infrastructure at eight regional sites, in partnership with the South Coast Air Quality Management District.
$25 million matched against $50 million in federal grants for battery-electric truck purchases.

The Port of Long Beach runs a parallel investment program with its share of the collections and announced expanded clean truck spending in March 2025.⁵

How the Fee Fits With California’s 2035 Drayage Mandate

The Clean Truck Fee sits inside a broader state framework. Under the California Air Resources Board’s Advanced Clean Fleets regulation, only zero-emission drayage trucks can be newly registered in CARB’s statewide TRUCRS database as of January 1, 2024. TRUCRS registration is required for any truck hauling cargo at a California seaport or intermodal railyard.⁶

Diesel and natural gas trucks already registered in TRUCRS by December 31, 2023, can keep operating until they reach their minimum useful life, defined as at least 13 years from the engine model year and up to 18 years or 800,000 miles, whichever comes first. After that, replacement must be zero-emission. By 2035, every registered drayage truck at California seaports and railyards must produce zero tailpipe emissions.¹

For cargo owners and fleet operators, the arithmetic is direct. A non-exempt diesel truck generates $10 or $20 per loaded container in Clean Truck Fee charges, which the cargo owner absorbs on every move. A zero-emission truck eliminates the fee permanently. Combined with the voucher programs and the regulatory endpoint, the transition is being pushed from both directions.

Fee Programs at Other U.S. Ports

The San Pedro Bay fee model is not universal. The Northwest Seaport Alliance, covering Seattle and Tacoma, requires drayage trucks to have a 2007 or newer engine and to carry an active RFID tag purchased through eModal for $103 plus additional fees, with current driver, VIN, company, and carrier code data on file.⁷

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey operates a Drayage Truck Registry that requires engines meeting or exceeding 2010 federal EPA emission standards for terminal access, but does not currently assess a per-container environmental fee comparable to the Clean Truck Fee.⁸ If you ship through those gateways, the Clean Truck Fee as it exists at the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports does not apply, though separate registration and engine standards do.

1
Port of Los Angeles. Port of Los Angeles Clean Truck Program
2
Port of Los Angeles. Port of Los Angeles Adopts Near-Term Clean Truck Spending Plan
3
City of Los Angeles. Port of Los Angeles Tariff – Clean Truck Fund Rate
4
PortCheck. PortCheck – Home
5
Port of Long Beach. Port to Increase Investment in Clean Trucks
6
California Air Resources Board. Advanced Clean Fleets Regulation Updates
7
The Northwest Seaport Alliance. Clean Truck Program
8
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Tariff – Drayage Truck Registry