Laytime

SHINC vs SHEX in laytime

Published 12 October 2026

SHINC means Sundays and holidays included: laytime (the time the charterer is allowed for loading or discharging) keeps counting through them. SHEX means Sundays and holidays excepted: those days do not count. The two terms can put a full day or more between two laytime calculations on the same port call. The extra letters that follow them, UU and EIU, decide what happens when cargo is worked on an excepted day anyway.

The terms side by side

None of these short forms is issued by any authority. The expansions below follow the Baltic Exchange glossary. The meanings follow the Laytime Definitions for Charter Parties 2013, a set of definitions agreed by BIMCO, CMI, FONASBA and the Baltic Exchange. Those definitions apply only when the charterparty (the charter contract) brings them in.

What a bare SHEX means when the ship works on Sunday

This is the point most often argued, so it is worth reading the definitions closely.

Definition 19 of the Laytime Definitions 2013 says that excepted or excluded days "do not count as Laytime even if loading or discharging is carried out on them". So where those definitions apply, SHEX on its own already works like SHEX EIU. Work done on the Sunday is free time for the charterer.

Definition 22 gives the opposite rule, and only when the words are there. Unless used means that "if Laytime has commenced but loading or discharging is carried out during excepted periods, actual time used shall count as Laytime". Only the time actually used counts, not the whole day.

So the two letters work like this:

• SHEX UU moves the worked hours back into the count. The owner gets credit for the time the ship was really used.
• SHEX EIU states the default under the definitions out loud. It adds no new rule. It removes the argument.
• SHEX with nothing after it leaves the question to the contract and the law that governs it. Under the 2013 definitions the answer is the same as EIU. A charterparty that does not bring those definitions in may be read differently, so do not rely on the bare word.

Some desks also write UUIWCATUTC, which the Baltic glossary expands as "unless used in which case actual time used to count". It says the same as UU and leaves less room for a claim that the whole day counts once work starts.

One timeline, six answers

Take one port call and change only the term. Laytime allowed is five days. Laytime starts on Thursday 8 October 2026 at 0800. Nothing else stops the clock. The question is when the five days run out.

The first and last rows are 44 hours apart on the same ship at the same berth. If the ship completes on Wednesday evening, the SHINC charterer is on demurrage (the daily charge for delay) and the SSHEX charterer still has time in hand. You can run your own dates through the free laytime calculator, which takes the excepted time as an input.

The exception has edges, and the fixture must state them

The table above assumes a Sunday runs from midnight to midnight. Many fixtures do not. A common written form is Saturday noon, or Saturday 1700, to Monday 0800. That clause is not SHEX. It is a longer exception with its own hours, and the count follows the clause. The last row of the table shows the difference: 44 hours taken out instead of 24.

Three more edges are worth settling before the ship arrives:

• Which days are holidays. Definition 14 defines a holiday by local law or practice: a day, other than the normal weekly day of rest, when work in ordinary working hours is not normally carried out. That depends on the port. A national holiday in the country of the charterer's head office is not a holiday at the load port.
• Which day is the day of rest. SHEX at a port that rests on Friday excepts the wrong day. Use FHEX, or write the days out.
• Load port and discharge port can differ. A fixture can be SHEX at one end and SHINC at the other. Quote both. "SHEX BENDS" (both ends) says it applies at each.

After laytime runs out, the exceptions usually stop

SHEX protects the charterer only while laytime is still running. Definition 30 says demurrage "shall not be subject to exceptions which apply to Laytime unless specifically stated in the Charter Party". A Sunday that would have been excepted on day three counts in full once the ship is on demurrage. The rule is known as once on demurrage, always on demurrage. How to calculate laytime and demurrage works a full example where this happens.

The same Sundays also matter when the ship finishes early. Despatch (money the owner pays for time saved) can be counted on all time saved, which includes the excepted Sunday, or on working time saved, which leaves it out. Despatch vs demurrage prices both from one timeline.

Which term appears where

There is no rule, only habit, and habit differs by trade.

• Tankers. The Baltic Exchange guide to tanker chartering describes the usual allowance as 72 hours SHINC total laytime for loading and discharging together. Tanker terminals work around the clock, so an exception for Sundays would describe nothing real.
• Dry bulk. Both appear, and the term should follow how the port really works. Where a terminal works every day, SHINC describes it. Where work on the day of rest is not normal, an exception does. A term copied from the last fixture into a port that works differently is how the argument starts.
• Weather. SHINC and SHEX deal with the calendar. Weather is a separate exception, usually written as a weather working day. A fixture can be both: "5 WWD SHEX UU" takes out bad weather and Sundays, and puts back the Sunday hours the ship actually worked.

The statement of facts must show the working hours on each excepted day, or UU cannot be applied at all. The statement of facts explains what the agent should record.

This page explains how the terms are normally read. It is not legal advice. The charterparty in front of you decides the count.

References

• BIMCO, CMI, FONASBA and the Baltic Exchange, Laytime Definitions for Charter Parties 2013, 2013, definitions 14, 19, 22 and 30. fonasba.com
• Baltic Exchange, Shipping Glossary, read 12 October 2026. balticexchange.com
• Baltic Exchange, Guide to Modern Shipping: Tanker Chartering, read 12 October 2026. balticexchange.com
• BIMCO, GENCON 2022, 2022. bimco.org

Related