Laytime

Notice of readiness

Published 20 August 2026 · updated 17 October 2026

A notice of readiness (NOR) is the document that starts the laytime clock. Laytime is the time the charterer is allowed for loading or discharging. The notice is one page. The master (the ship’s captain) usually sends it in a hurry while busy with other work. Yet it is the most disputed piece of paper in a voyage charter. A demurrage claim (for the money the charterer pays when loading or discharging takes longer than laytime) can depend entirely on whether the notice was valid.

Three statements, three ways to challenge them

A NOR states three separate things at the same moment: the ship has arrived, it is ready in all respects to load or discharge, and the notice is tendered in accordance with the charterparty, which means it is given in the way the charter contract requires.

Each of these can be challenged on its own. A charterer who is fighting a demurrage claim does not need all three to fail. If any one fails, the notice was invalid. Laytime did not start when the owner says it did, and every hour in the calculation changes. You can rework the figures with a different start time in the free laytime calculator.

Arrived: the answer depends on which charter was signed

Whether a ship waiting at anchor has arrived does not depend on the ship. It depends on the contract.

Under a berth charter, the named berth is the destination in the contract. The ship has not arrived until it is at that berth. If the ship waits at the anchorage because the port is congested, the owner carries that risk. A NOR given from the anchorage is not valid, unless a clause says otherwise.

Under a port charter, the port is the destination. The ship arrives when it is inside the port and at the immediate and effective disposal of the charterer, meaning the charterer can use it straight away. Under the usual English law test, a ship waiting inside the port limits at a usual waiting place has arrived. A ship anchored well outside the limits has not.

This difference decides who carries the risk of congestion. In a congested load port, that risk is often worth more than the freight the parties spent a week negotiating. The heading of the charter does not tell you which type it is. A charter may name a berth but add a clause that moves waiting time to the charterers. That is still a berth charter with the risk moved, not a port charter, so read the clause rather than the label.

Ready: physical and legal

Physically ready means the ship can handle the cargo now. The holds are clean, dry and free of the last cargo’s leftovers, and they have passed inspection by whoever the charterparty names. If the ship has its own cranes (gear), they are tested and working. The hatches can be opened and the ballast can be pumped. On a tanker, the tanks are emptied, the lines are clear and the cargo system is set up for the grade of oil.

Giving notice before the hold inspection is a common reason for an invalid notice. If the holds have not yet passed, the ship is not ready. It only expects to be ready, which is a different statement. If the holds fail at 0600 and pass at 1400, a notice given at 0500 was untrue when it was given.

Legally ready covers free pratique (health clearance from the port), customs clearance and the papers the port requires. Does a missing free pratique make a NOR invalid? Practice differs by country and by charter form. Where pratique is a formality given on arrival, it is often not treated as a bar to readiness. Where it is a real inspection that could refuse the ship, it is a true condition. WIFPON exists because this question is real enough to need a clause.

Tender: to whom, in what form, in what hours

• To whom. The notice goes to the charterers, or to the party the charterparty names: their agents, the shippers or the receivers. Notice to the ship’s own agent is not automatically notice to the charterer. If the notice is passed along a chain, the time it takes effect can be hours later than the time the master sent it.
• In what form. Many clauses require writing, and some name the channel. Older forms still list letter, telex, cable and radio. This becomes a real question when the notice goes out as an e-mail attachment at 2347 to an address that nobody reads until morning.
• In what hours. The usual limit is office hours on working days, for example 0800 to 1700 Monday to Friday and 0800 to 1200 Saturday. Under that clause, a notice given at 2200 on a Saturday does not take effect on Saturday. It waits.

The office hours limit can make a notice invalid even when everything else about it is correct. The ship really has arrived and really is ready, but the notice still starts nothing, because the contract said when it could be given, and it was given at another time.

The WI terms, and what each one actually waives

Each of these abbreviations removes one condition. They are short forms used in drafting, not law, and they do nothing beyond the condition they name.

They are usually put together in one line: NOR to be tendered WIPON WIBON WIFPON WICCON. Read that as four separate waivers, not as general approval. WIBON does not make an unready ship ready. If the dispute is about clean holds, none of the four helps at all. An owner who gave notice early because of these letters has still given an invalid notice. The letters do not change that.

A valid NOR still does not start laytime

A good notice starts the notice period. Depending on the form, this is called turn time or free time. Six hours and twelve hours are both common. So is the older formula: laytime starts at 1300 if the notice is given before noon, and at 0800 on the next working day if it is given in the afternoon.

Turn time exists so that a ship arriving at 0300 does not use up the charterer’s allowed time before anyone can respond. If cargo work is done during turn time, does it count against laytime? That depends on the clause, and both answers are in use.

Re-tendering

If the first notice was bad, the normal fix is to send another one. The holds fail, they are cleaned, they pass, a new NOR goes out, and the parties argue about laytime from that notice. Some owners send a new notice every day as routine. Then, if the first notice is challenged later, there is a valid one on file. It costs one e-mail, and it has saved many claims.

Do not assume an invalid notice fixes itself. One line of legal reasoning says a defective notice becomes valid once the ship really is ready. Some tribunals will not accept that. If you rely on the notice fixing itself, you rely on the tribunal. That is a worse position than sending a second e-mail.

Nobody objected at the time. That is not agreement

This part has commercial consequences. The notice is given, the agent confirms receipt, the ship berths, cargo work starts and the voyage goes on. Nobody says the notice was invalid, because at that moment nobody is looking for a reason.

Months later the demurrage claim arrives. Someone in a claims department reads the file properly for the first time. Now the Saturday night notice matters, and so does the hold inspection that failed in the morning and passed in the afternoon. Saying nothing at the time is rarely a waiver (giving up a right). Some charterparties have a clause that treats a notice as accepted if nobody challenges it within a set period. Without such a clause, a notice that nobody challenged is still not a valid one.

This is why the statement of facts (SOF) matters so much. The NOR is the claim and the SOF is the evidence for it: the time of tender, the inspection result and time, free pratique granted, customs cleared, pilot on board, first line ashore, all fast, loading started. Someone present should record it as it happens, in UTC with the local time difference stated. A notice argued over a year later is only as good as the timeline behind it.

The charterparty decides all of it

Everything above is common practice, and the practice differs by form. Gencon, Asbatankvoy, Synacomex, Norgrain and many house forms and riders (extra clauses) each answer these questions differently. Hardly any of the answers apply by default. Does arrival mean the berth or the port? Is free pratique a condition? In what hours may a notice be given? All of that is set by the wording, not by custom. A broker who knows the terms understands what the parties are arguing about. The clause decides the answer.

References

• Steamship Mutual, Notice of readiness, FAQs. steamshipmutual.com
• Steamship Mutual, Berth or port charter?, 2010. steamshipmutual.com
• Skuld, A brief history of laytime, 2018. skuld.com
• BIMCO, CMI, FONASBA and the Baltic Exchange, Laytime Definitions for Charter Parties 2013, 2013. fonasba.com

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