How long does shipping from the US to China take?
Measured first-hand from carrier-published schedules for the October 2026 window, port to port, across 35 port pairs. The lanes below are the representative ones and carry221 sailings between them; the remaining pairs repeat the same pattern by destination port, and the headline range is the full measured spread rather than this subset.
US West Coast
| Lane | Sailings | Transit | Direct or relay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oakland → Qingdao | 6 | 16–23 days | All 6 direct |
| Oakland → Shanghai | 15 | 18–38 days | All 15 direct |
| Oakland → Shekou | 24 | 17–60 days | 12 direct at 17–34, rest by relay |
| Los Angeles → Qingdao | 8 | 18–30 days | 5 direct at 18–26 |
| Los Angeles → Shanghai | 16 | 19–41 days | All 16 direct |
| Los Angeles → Ningbo | 10 | 23–34 days | All 10 direct |
| Seattle → Shanghai | 5 | 31–37 days | All 5 direct |
US East Coast
| Lane | Sailings | Transit | Direct or relay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Savannah → Qingdao | 7 | 29–74 days | 4 direct at 29–43 |
| New York → Nansha | 43 | 43–90 days | All by relay |
| New York → Qingdao | 5 | 36–80 days | 2 direct at 36–47 |
| New York → Yantian | 9 | 42–51 days | All 9 direct |
| Savannah → Shanghai | 9 | 46–64 days | All 9 direct |
| New York → Shanghai | 3 | 51–59 days | All 3 direct |
| New York → Ningbo | 6 | 55–73 days | 3 direct at 55–63 |
US Gulf
| Lane | Sailings | Transit | Direct or relay |
|---|---|---|---|
| Houston → Qingdao | 7 | 29–71 days | 3 direct at 29–37 |
| Houston → Shanghai | 25 | 32–62 days | All 25 direct |
| Houston → Shekou | 23 | 30–69 days | 15 direct at 30–49 |
Source: ONE (Ocean Network Express) public point-to-point schedule API, October 2026 sailing window, port to port, retrieved 2026-09-20. Full measured range across all 35 pairs: 16–90 days.
Why does the coast matter more than anything else?
The Pacific crossing is not the variable — the number of legs is. A US West Coast port sits on the same ocean as China, so the vessel sails directly across. An East Coast port is reached either through the Panama Canal or by crossing the Pacific first and moving inland, and each option adds a leg that is measured in weeks.
On the lanes measured here the difference is roughly three weeks at the fast end: Oakland to Qingdao is 16–23 days while New York to Ningbo is 55–73. That is a wider spread than this site records between most countries, which makes the loading coast the first decision on this lane and the ocean rate the second.
The practical consequence is that moving cargo to a West Coast port is a domestic leg you control and can price, while the ocean leg is what changes by three weeks. On anything time-sensitive, the domestic leg is usually worth paying for.
Which other directions did we check?
Before building this page we measured the reverse direction for four markets, because a page for a direction nobody searches is a page that earns nothing:
| Reverse lane | Measured volume | Built? |
|---|---|---|
| UK → China | 480 | Yes |
| US → China | 210 | This page |
| UAE → China | No data | No |
| Saudi Arabia → China | No data | No |
The two Gulf markets returned nothing for the reverse term, and their keyword lists contained only outbound queries. A page for them would have had no measured demand behind it, so none was written — the absence is recorded here instead.
What does this page not cover?
China's own import duty, import VAT and the personal allowance threshold are not published here. We could not reach the General Administration of Customs sources from this environment, so those figures are unverified, and an unverified number is worse than an absent one.