Shipping Time from Japan to China – How Long

How long does it take by sea if you are shipping from Japan to China through a freight shipping company? (What is the shipping time from Japan to China?)

The actual sailing/shipping days from the port of Tokyo or Yokohama to main ports in China (port-to-port transit time) such as Shanghai, Qingdao, Dalian or Xingang is only 3 - 8 days. For instance, if there is a container cargo ship leaving Yokohama for Dalian on May 10, it will arrive in the port of Dalian, China on May 17. This sounds very quick; however to have a better idea of how long it actually takes for a shipment from Japan to arrive in China, such factors as the time required for customs clearance, the time required for loading shipments into consolidation containers would need to be taken into consideration as well.

The following points are also important and will have to be taken into consideration;

* Deadline for containerization (i.e. loading shipments into containers) is normally 5 days before the actual departure date of a ship to China.

* Shipments must be cleared through Japan customs at least a few days before the deadline for containerization.

* There is normally one or two ships per week for major destination in China.

Taking these points into consideration, the actual shipping time from pickup in Japan to arrival at ports in China would be about 18 to 28 days, provided that all shipping and customs documents are in order and that there is no problem with the customs clearance.

Also note that even after the arrival of the ship at the ports in China, it is normally at least a few days after the ship’s actual arrival ship that anything can be done about the shipment as it takes a few days for containers to be delivered from the ship to Container Freight Station and then the shipments inside the containers are unloaded. In other words you can only start customs clearance after the shipments at the container freight station which will be at least a few days later.

Followings are the port-to-port transit times to some of major ports in China.

Dalian	7 Days
Xingang	6 Days
Guangzhou (Jiao Xin)	10 Dyas
Qindao	3 Days
Shanghai	3 Days

Consolidation services to mainland China are available from the ports of Tokyo /Yokohama, Osaka/Kobe and Moji / Fukuoka.

Transit times are indicative only and are not guaranteed. Note once again that the shipping time from Japan to China depends on various factors.