Every published transit time is a sailing time between two ports, on a schedule, in normal conditions. What you actually care about is when the cargo reaches your warehouse. Those two numbers have never been the same, and on Asia to Europe they are currently further apart than they have been in years.
The short answer
Take the published port-to-port figure and add two to three weeks for the door-to-door reality. Then check, for Asia to Europe specifically, whether your service is routing via Suez or around the Cape of Good Hope, because that single question is worth ten to fourteen days.
What the published number leaves out
A carrier's 30-day transit covers the vessel leaving one port and arriving at another. Sitting outside it:
- Origin, roughly 3 to 7 days. Collection, haulage to port, export clearance, and the documentation cut-off, which falls before the cargo cut-off.
- Transhipment waiting, 2 to 10 days. Most services are not direct. Your box is discharged at a hub and waits for the next connecting vessel. A missed connection costs a full service rotation.
- Destination clearance, 2 to 5 days. Longer if the entry is queried, and documentation mismatches are the usual cause.
- Port dwell and inland delivery, 2 to 7 days. Chassis availability, drayage capacity and appointment slots all bite here.
- Rolled cargo, 0 or 7 to 14 days. Overbooked sailings roll containers to the next vessel. It is not rare and it is not usually compensated.
The Suez question, which dominates Asia to Europe right now
Since the Red Sea disruption began in late 2023, most Asia to Europe container services have routed around the Cape of Good Hope instead of transiting the Suez Canal. That adds roughly 3,500 nautical miles and ten to fourteen days.
Through 2026 carriers have been returning to the canal, but partially and unevenly. As of early September 2026 roughly a fifth of westbound Asia to Europe capacity was transiting Suez, with MSC resuming Red Sea transits on several named services and CMA CGM running selected sailings, while the Gemini partners Maersk and Hapag-Lloyd continued to route the bulk of their Asia to Europe volume via the Cape. Suez capacity for the July to October window was running around 1.3 million TEU a month: well up on the first half of the year, and still roughly a fifth of pre-disruption levels. Some analysts expect a fuller return by year end.
The practical consequence is that "China to Europe" no longer has one transit time. Two bookings on the same lane in the same week can differ by two weeks depending on the service. Ask which routing your booking uses, and do not accept a lane-average figure.
Realistic ranges by lane
Port to port, in normal conditions. Treat as planning ranges, not commitments.
Asia to Europe
- China to North Europe via Cape: 40 to 50 days
- China to North Europe via Suez: 28 to 35 days
- China to Mediterranean via Cape: 38 to 48 days
- China to Mediterranean via Suez: 24 to 32 days
The Mediterranean lost proportionally more than North Europe from the diversion, because Cape routing removes the geographic advantage the Med normally has.
Asia to North America
Largely unaffected by the Red Sea, since the Pacific routing does not use Suez.
- China to US West Coast: 12 to 20 days
- China to US East Coast via Panama: 26 to 35 days
- China to US East Coast via Suez: 30 to 40 days, and subject to the same Red Sea question
- China to Vancouver: 13 to 20 days
Transatlantic and others
- North Europe to US East Coast: 12 to 18 days
- North Europe to US West Coast: 25 to 35 days
- India to North Europe: 25 to 35 days, routing-dependent
- Southeast Asia to US West Coast: 18 to 28 days
- South America east coast to North Europe: 18 to 25 days
What else moves the number
- Direct versus transhipment. A direct service on a major port pair is materially faster and more reliable than a two-leg routing through a hub.
- Port rotation. Your discharge port may be fourth on the vessel's rotation, adding days after arrival in the region.
- Slow steaming. Carriers reduce speed to save fuel and absorb capacity. It is a normal commercial decision, not a delay.
- Congestion. Concentrated at a handful of gateways at any time, and it moves.
- Season. Pre-Lunar New Year and the Q3 to Q4 peak both tighten space, which raises rolling risk more than it changes sailing time.
- Canal constraints. Panama draught restrictions in drought conditions can force routing changes on Asia to US East Coast.
Planning with these numbers
- Plan on the upper end of the range, not the midpoint. The distribution is not symmetric: delays are common and early arrivals are rare.
- Never promise a customer the published sailing time. Quote door to door, with the origin and destination legs included.
- Ask for schedule reliability, not just transit time. Carriers and analysts publish on-time performance by service, and a slower service with 70% reliability often beats a faster one at 45%.
- Book earlier in peak. Most peak-season pain is rolled cargo, not slower ships. See how to avoid being rolled.
- Reconsider the mode when the gap widens. At 45-day sea transits, rail to Europe and sea-air both become defensible for cargo that could not justify them at 30 days.
