The most common flag question, and the behaviour is deliberate.
Destination demurrage anchors on the port of discharge that the carrier declares, not on the
final delivery place. When a carrier lists a seaport as the port of discharge and an inland place
only as the final destination, the flag triggers on the seaport discharge.
The reasoning: if the carrier considers the ocean leg closed at that port, free time has usually
started running contractually. Anchoring on the final destination instead would mean the flag only
fires once demurrage is already accruing, which defeats the purpose.
The consequence is that on routings where free time contractually starts further inland, the flag
is early. That is the conservative side to be wrong on, and it is a known trade-off rather than a
misconfiguration.
If a lane consistently flags early because free time genuinely starts at the inland destination,
raise it with support. The flag anchor is a deliberate default, not a fixed rule for every flow.
Example
A carrier declares a seaport as the port of discharge and an inland place as the final destination. The carrier treats the ocean leg as closed at the seaport, so free time starts there. The demurrage flag anchors on that seaport discharge and fires early even though the container is still moving inland. If the lane consistently flags early because free time starts inland, raise it with support.