How to Actually Collect Detention, Layover & TONU from Freight Brokers

Every owner operator has lived this nightmare: You arrive at a cold storage facility in Chicago for a 7:00 AM delivery appointment. You check in at 6:45 AM. The guard gives you a pager and tells you to park in the staging yard. Five hours later, the pager finally vibrates. By the time the forklift drivers finish unloading 44,000 pounds of frozen poultry, it is 2:30 PM.

You burned 7.5 hours of your legal 14-hour ELD driving clock sitting in a sleeper berth. When you call the freight broker asking for detention pay, the broker broker hits you with the classic excuse: "Sorry buddy, shipper didn't approve it. Nothing I can do."

That is stolen revenue. At standard industry detention rates of $50 to $75 per hour after 2 hours of free time, that shipper owes you $275 to $412.50 for your lost operational time. If you haul 100 loads a year and get stiffed on detention just twice a month, you are handing $6,000 to $10,000 of your hard-earned profit right back to negligent brokers and shippers.

Brokers don't pay detention because drivers make procedural mistakes that give accounting departments an easy excuse to deny the claim. Here is the exact, battle-tested playbook professional dispatchers use to guarantee detention, layover, and TONU collection on every load.

The Golden Rule: The 2-Hour "Free Time" Clock

In standard commercial freight contracts, shippers and receivers are granted two hours of "free time" to load or unload your trailer, starting from your scheduled appointment time or your physical arrival time (whichever is later). Detention pay begins at hour 2:01.

The 4 Mandatory Steps to Prove Detention

If you fail even one of these four steps, 90% of brokerage accounting departments will reject your detention invoice:

1. Notify the Broker at the 90-Minute Mark: Never wait until hour 4 to tell the broker you are waiting. At exactly 1 hour and 30 minutes after check-in, call and email the broker: "Truck arrived at 08:00. Still not in a dock. Free time expires at 10:00. Please reach out to your shipper contact to expedite loading, or detention clock starts at 10:01." This puts the broker on notice and gives them a paper trail to bill their shipper.
2. Get Signed Timestamps on the Bill of Lading (BOL): This is non-negotiable. When the guard or receiving clerk signs your POD, they MUST hand-write or stamp:
   • Arrival Time & Date: (e.g., "Arrived: 07:45 AM 09/20/26")
   • In-Dock Time: (e.g., "Docked: 11:30 AM")
   • Departure / Out Time: (e.g., "Finished / Out: 02:45 PM 09/20/26")
   • Receiver Signature / Initials
   If the receiver refuses to write the departure time, take a time-stamped photo of your ELD screen showing your location in the yard, or take a picture of your dashboard clock with the facility gate in the background.
3. Send the Revised Rate Confirmation Request Immediately: As soon as the gate closes behind you, email the signed, stamped BOL to the broker with your calculation:

   Total Time on Site: 7.0 Hours
   Contract Free Time: 2.0 Hours
   Billable Detention: 5.0 Hours @ $60/hr = $300.00
   Attached: Signed BOL with In/Out timestamps.
   Please issue a revised rate confirmation with updated total.

4. Never Factor or Invoice Without the Revised Rate Con: Factoring companies and accounting desks pay based on the rate confirmation. If you submit the original $2,500 rate con with a handwritten $300 note, the factoring company will only advance the $2,500. Force the broker to issue a revised confirmation showing $2,800.

How to Collect TONU (Truck Ordered, Not Used)

A TONU occurs when a broker books your truck, issues a rate confirmation, and then cancels the load after you have already deadheaded to the facility, or cancels within a short window before pickup.