Shanghai Containerized Freight Index (SCFI)

What is the Shanghai Containerized Freight Index (SCFI)?

The Shanghai Containerized Freight Index (SCFI) is a weekly benchmark of container spot freight rates from the Port of Shanghai to major world ports, published by the Shanghai Shipping Exchange. Unlike the dry-bulk Baltic indices, the SCFI covers containerized cargo — manufactured goods, electronics, furniture and the rest of the boxed-trade economy. It is a weighted composite across key trade lanes (Europe, the US West and East Coasts, the Mediterranean and others) and is quoted on a base of 1000 set in October 2009. Because so much of the world's container trade originates in China, the SCFI is one of the most closely watched gauges of container shipping rate movements.

How often is the SCFI updated and when is it published?

The SCFI is published once a week, every Friday, by the Shanghai Shipping Exchange. This weekly cadence is important for anyone building monitoring or alerting: a data pipeline should treat the SCFI as fresh for roughly eight days and only flag it as stale after more than a week without an update — applying a daily staleness threshold would generate a false alarm every single day. OilPriceAPI is set up to track the SCFI on a weekly-cadence freshness monitor for this reason.

How does the SCFI compare to the Drewry World Container Index?

The SCFI and the Drewry World Container Index (WCI) both measure container spot rates, but they differ in origin, scope and unit. The SCFI is published by the Shanghai Shipping Exchange every Friday, is Shanghai-origin, and is quoted as an index (base 1000). The Drewry WCI is published every Thursday, covers eight major East-West routes from multiple origins, and is quoted in US dollars per 40-foot container. Many analysts watch both: the SCFI for a China-centric, index-form read, and the WCI for a dollar-denominated, multi-route benchmark. They generally move in the same direction during major rate cycles.

Who uses the SCFI?

• Importers and exporters benchmarking container spot rates out of China
• Freight forwarders and shippers negotiating contract vs spot pricing
• Supply-chain and logistics analysts tracking container market tightness
• Container line and NVOCC desks monitoring rate momentum

How do I get Shanghai Containerized Freight Index data via API?

Request the latest SCFI value from the OilPriceAPI REST endpoint using the code SCFI_INDEX. Sign up for a free API key, then call:

curl "https://api.oilpriceapi.com/v1/prices/latest?by_code=SCFI_INDEX" \
  -H "Authorization: Token YOUR_API_KEY"

The response is JSON with the current value, currency/unit and a timestamp. Poll on the index's publish cadence — weekly, published every friday — rather than every minute.

Is Shanghai Containerized Freight Index data available as CSV?

Yes. Every price endpoint accepts format=csv and responds with the content type text/csv and a header row, instead of JSON. Same request, same weekly cadence — one extra parameter:

curl "https://api.oilpriceapi.com/v1/prices/latest?by_code=SCFI_INDEX&format=csv" \
  -H "Authorization: Token YOUR_API_KEY"

You can confirm the format before signing up. This demo request needs no API key and returns real CSV:

curl "https://api.oilpriceapi.com/v1/demo/prices?format=csv"

It answers with the content type text/csv and a header row, followed by one row per series. Use it to confirm that CSV is real before you sign up — but build your parser against the price endpoint, not against the demo: the two return different columns. The demo set also covers oil benchmarks only and does not include the freight indices.

code,name,price,currency,updated_at,change_24h,source

price,formatted,currency,code,created_at,updated_at,type,unit,source,as_of,collected_at,synthetic,stale,age_days

The freshness field on the authenticated response is created_at, and there is no name or change_24h column. Both header rows above were taken from live responses on 2026-08-21; treat column order as stable but read by name, not by index.

When the SCFI is not the right data