Chartered-in days measure the number of vessel-days a shipping company controls through chartering vessels from third-party owners rather than owning those vessels itself.
The metric helps distinguish owned fleet capacity from externally sourced operating capacity.
Chartered-in days versus ownership days
Vessel Ownership Days measure days attributable to vessels the company owns.
Chartered-in days measure days attributable to vessels the company controls under charter arrangements.
A company can therefore expand commercial capacity without buying additional ships.
Example
Suppose a company owns vessels for 10,000 ownership days during the year and charters third-party vessels for another 1,500 days.
1Owned capacity days = 10,000
2Chartered-in days = 1,500
3Controlled days = 11,500 before other definition adjustmentsThe exact relationship with available or operating days depends on the issuer's methodology.
Why investors track chartered-in days
More chartered-in days can:
- increase revenue-generating capacity;
- reduce the need for vessel acquisition capital;
- create charter-hire expense;
- increase exposure to contracted lease rates; and
- change the relationship between owned fleet size and reported revenue.
The economics depend heavily on the rate paid to charter the vessel and the rate earned from deploying it.
Do not mix owned and chartered capacity blindly
Chartered-in vessels may have different:
- contract durations;
- vessel classes;
- maintenance responsibilities;
- cost structures; and
- off-hire provisions.
Investors should therefore avoid treating one chartered-in day as economically identical to one ownership day without reading the contract structure.
Filing example
Genco Shipping & Trading reports chartered-in days by vessel class alongside ownership, available, and operating days. Its 2025 table showed increased chartered-in days for Ultramax vessels and separate chartered-in activity for Supramax vessels.
Source:
Chartered-in days are a controlled-capacity measure. Read them with charter-hire costs, TCE rates, owned fleet days, and vessel class before evaluating whether chartering expands value or merely expands activity.
Part of the Shipping Operating Model
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These companies are examples of how the concept is reported or discussed in public filings. Definitions can differ by issuer; these links open company research rather than a normalized metric comparison.
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