30. August 2026
Drayage, acarreo, transporte de contenedores: one move, several names
The short move between a port and a warehouse has one name in the American trade, drayage, and no single name in Spanish. Importers say acarreo, transporte de contenedores, transporte terrestre, or just el camión, and which one they use depends on where they learned the business. That matters in Miami more than anywhere, because the buyer and the seller of this service frequently do not use the same word for it, and a quote request that uses the wrong one gets routed to the wrong desk.
Why the word is a real problem here
Miami is the gateway between the United States and Latin America and the Caribbean, so a large share of the people buying this service work in Spanish every day while the industry around them documents itself in English.
The English word drayage does not translate cleanly. It is not a general word for trucking, it is specifically the short leg that connects a port or rail ramp to somewhere else, and Spanish has no single term that carries exactly that meaning.
So people reach for the nearest word they know, and the nearest word differs by country. None of them are wrong. They are just not the same word, and a search engine treats them as unrelated.
The words people actually use
Acarreo is the closest single word and the one most often used for the port leg itself. Transporte de contenedores is the most literal and the most searched, and it is what most Spanish-language freight sites lead with.
Transporte terrestre is broader: it means the land leg of any international shipment, so it covers this move and much else besides. And plenty of importers simply say el camión, which is precise enough between two people who already know which container they are discussing.
The regional variation runs deeper than the headline word. A chassis split is a chassis split here; Spanish-language logistics writing from Mexico calls the same thing una división de chasis. Both describe one truck making two trips because the equipment and the box are in different places.
The charge words that do not translate at all
Demurrage, per diem and detention stay in English on Miami invoices, including invoices sent to Spanish-speaking importers, because those are the words on the terminal's and the line's own tariffs.
Trying to translate them makes things worse rather than better. Almacenaje sounds like it should mean demurrage and can equally mean warehouse storage, which is a different charge from a different party. Last free day is used untranslated for the same reason: everyone in the port means the same thing by it.
Our own rule is to write the explanation in the reader's language and leave the billable term in the language it will appear in on the invoice, so nobody has to reverse-translate a charge they are trying to dispute.
What to ask for, so you get the right thing
Whatever word you use, the request is the same short list: the container number, the port or terminal, the size and type of box, the destination, and whether anything about it is unusual.
You do not have to know the English term to buy the service. You do have to say which port and which container, because those two facts are what turn a general question into a price.
And you can write to us in Spanish. Quotes are answered in the language they arrive in, which is not a marketing line so much as an acknowledgement of who actually imports through this port.
Vocabulary · Spanish · Drayage · Miami · Importers
Where to act on this
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Klare Antworten
What is drayage called in Spanish?
There is no single word. Acarreo is the closest one and the one most often used for the port leg itself. Transporte de contenedores is the most literal and the most searched, and it is what most Spanish-language freight sites lead with. Transporte terrestre is broader and covers the land leg of any international shipment. Plenty of importers just say el camion, which is precise enough between two people who already know which container they mean.
Is acarreo the same as transporte de contenedores?
In practice they point at the same move, but they are not equally precise. Acarreo names the short leg between a port or rail ramp and somewhere else, which is what the English word drayage means. Transporte de contenedores is the literal description of moving containers and gets used for longer hauls too. Which one an importer says usually depends on where they learned the business, and a search engine treats them as unrelated words.
Why are demurrage and per diem not translated on Miami invoices?
Because those are the words on the terminal tariff and on the shipping line paperwork, so they stay in English even on invoices sent to Spanish-speaking importers. Translating them makes disputes harder, not easier. Almacenaje sounds like it should mean demurrage but can equally mean warehouse storage, which is a different charge from a different party. Last free day stays untranslated for the same reason: everyone in the port means the same thing by it.
What does una division de chasis mean?
It is the Spanish-language logistics term, common in writing from Mexico, for what is called a chassis split here. Both describe the same thing: one truck making two trips because the container and the chassis are in different places, so the driver collects the equipment first and the box second. The regional variation runs deeper than the headline word, and this is a good example of two trades describing one job in language that does not overlap.
Can I send a quote request in Spanish?
Yes. Quotes are answered in the language they arrive in, which is less a marketing line than an acknowledgement of who actually imports through this port. Whichever word you use for the move, the request is the same short list: the container number, the port or terminal, the size and type of box, the destination, and whether anything about it is unusual. You do not have to know the English term to buy the service.
Wie bekomme ich einen Preis?
Schicken Sie Strecke, Equipment, Containergröße und Hafen, dann kommt eine Zahl zurück. Angebote und Disposition laufen rund um die Uhr unter quotes@dariaslogistics.com.