Port Tariffs Head Back to Hearing — Budget the Cap, Not the Ask

Every box that crosses a South African quay already costs 7.57% more this year than last, and the Ports Regulator is now in a fortnight of public hearings that will decide how much more it costs in 2027 and 2028. Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) has put its case for the 2027/28 and 2028/29 tariff years in front of the regulator; port users have until the hearings close to argue it down. The gap between what TNPA asks and what it is granted is not a technicality — it is a line in your landed cost, and history says the ask is the wrong number to plan around.

What Is Actually on the Table

The starting point is what already happened. On 1 December 2025 in Durban, Ports Regulator chief executive Mukondeleli Johanna Mulaudzi handed down a weighted-average tariff increase of 7.57% for the 2026/27 year that began this April — trimmed from the 9.61% TNPA had requested across the multi-year application. That decision set a required revenue of R17.42 billion for the authority, including an R800-million tariff-moderation allocation used to soften the headline number.

The 7.57% is not felt evenly. Cargo dues — the per-tonne or per-container charge levied on the goods themselves — rose 7.80% on containers, 7.40% on liquid bulk and 8.30% on dry bulk, with other categories spread across 7.10% to 8.50%. Marine services, the pilotage, towage and berthing charged to the vessel and passed down the chain, went up 9.60%. "The Ports Act states the NPA must be able to generate a return that will be reinvested into the ports system," Mulaudzi said in defending the award — the statutory logic that makes every one of these hearings a negotiation over how large that return should be.

These hearings settle the two years after that. Within a multi-year application the regulator confirms the first year and carries the out-years as indicative figures, then finalises each in its own determination — which is the process running now for 2027/28 and 2028/29. TNPA's indicative ask sits at 9.61%; the regulator has signalled it wants the out-years held closer to inflation, between roughly 4% and 6%. The spread between those two numbers is the whole reason to pay attention.

What It Means for the Invoice

Port charges are one of the few landed-cost components an importer cannot shop around: there is one national ports authority and its tariff is gazetted, so whatever the regulator grants lands on every consignment through Durban, Cape Town, Ngqura, Gqeberha, Richards Bay, Saldanha, East London and Mossel Bay without exception. A 9.61% award versus a 5% one is not a rounding difference on a full-year container programme — it is real money, and it compounds on top of a 7.57% base that is already in force.

It also does not arrive alone. The surcharges stack: the fuel neutrality charge, a diesel pass-through TNPA levies on every handled container, was reset to R52 per box for vessels berthing from 1 August, down from R78 in June but still a line that did not exist two years ago. Terminal handling charges, quoted separately by the operator, move on their own cycle. The number a finance team should carry for 2027 is therefore not TNPA's headline percentage but the regulator's likely award plus the surcharges that ride alongside it.

Why the Ask Keeps Outrunning the Service

The counterargument TNPA will make — that it needs the revenue to reinvest in ports that badly need it — is true, and it is also the problem. South Africa's terminals have sat near the bottom of the World Bank's Container Port Performance Index for several years running, and the dwell times and vessel queues that follow are precisely what a reinvestment tariff is meant to cure. Importers are being asked to pay more each year for a network whose measured performance has not yet turned, which is why the regulator trimmed 9.61% to 7.57% last time and 7.90% to 4.4% the year before that.

The pattern is consistent enough to plan around: TNPA asks high, the regulator cuts, and the cut tracks what Treasury's inflation outlook will bear rather than what the authority's capital plan wants. That does not make the hearings theatre — the submissions from cargo owners and terminal operators are what give the regulator the evidence to cut — but it does mean the granted number, not the requested one, is the honest input to a budget. Betting on the ask over-provisions your costs; betting on last year's award under-provisions them if the surcharges climb.

Our Take

Plan on the cap, engage the hearing, and price the pass-throughs separately. Three concrete moves. First, for any 2027 landed-cost model, use a port-tariff assumption at the top of the regulator's signalled 4% to 6% band, not TNPA's 9.61% and not a flat repeat of 7.57% — the award has undershot the ask every year the regulator has ruled. Second, if you move meaningful volume, get a submission in before the hearings close; the regulator's cuts are built from exactly this evidence, and cargo owners who stay silent are represented only by the operators. Third, model the fuel neutrality charge and terminal handling as their own lines rather than folding them into the tariff — at R52 a box the neutrality charge alone is a five-figure annual cost on a modest container programme, and it moves quarterly on a logic the tariff hearing does not touch. The tariff you can influence for a fortnight; the surcharges you can only forecast. Do both.