CHEP and Loscam Pallet Hire Fees: How to Return Pallets and Stop the Daily Charges

A pooled pallet is hired, not owned. CHEP daily hire starts from about 20 cents a pallet and a lost CHEP pallet is charged at around $55; Loscam hire also starts from 20 cents a day and its compensation charge is $39.99 a pallet. The charges stop only when the pallet is transferred to another account or returned to a depot, so pallets sitting in your yard, or sent to a customer without a docket, keep costing you every day.

How pallet pooling charges work

CHEP (blue) and Loscam (red) run pallet pools. You open an account, pallets are issued to you, and from that day you are charged hire for every pallet on your account until it is transferred to another account holder or returned to a depot. AusPallets summarises the CHEP model plainly: "you pay a fee each time a pallet enters your network", and "lost or damaged pallets incur additional charges". Precise Pallet Management, a pallet-audit consultancy, describes the weekly CHEP base charge as pallets on hire multiplied by seven days multiplied by the daily rate; its worked example uses 5,000 pallets at $0.15 a day, which is $5,250 a week before GST.

Those numbers look small until they are multiplied. Precise Pallet Management's example is a site losing six pallets a day: at $55 each that is $120,450 a year in compensation alone, before a single day of hire. The 2010 Bunnings case, cited by SupplyScope, is the extreme end: the NSW Supreme Court ordered Bunnings to pay CHEP $10.98 million over roughly 65,000 pallets that were not returned between 2002 and 2007.

Why the invoice rises after the pallets have gone

Hire is calculated in equipment-days, and the timing of paperwork matters as much as the physical movement. Precise Pallet Management's breakdown of a CHEP invoice explains three mechanics that catch warehouses out:

• Equipment-day credits and debits. A transfer off your account dated 31 days before the invoice date produces a credit of 124 equipment-days for four pallets. If the receiver processes the transfer late, the credit shrinks or reverses, so a pallet you sent weeks ago is still charged to you.
• Suspended pallets. "CHEP doesn't allow a negative pallet balance. If your movements would take you below zero, they automatically add 'Suspended' pallets", which unwind only when new stock is issued.
• Escrow. When your weekly credits exceed your charges, "CHEP won't issue you a negative invoice", the surplus equipment-days go into escrow and offset later weeks, which hides the true weekly position.

The practical effect is that the pallet count on your invoice can be higher than the pallets you can see. Every unsigned docket, every delivery to a customer whose account did not accept the transfer, and every pallet left at a transport depot is still yours.

How third parties pass the charges on

Transport companies run the same arithmetic. Pickering Transport Group publishes an IOU arrangement for customers without their own pool account: a rental fee of 25 cents a day a pallet, a $55 restocking fee for non-recoverable pallets or receivers without a valid account, and a $55 recoupment charge for pallets outstanding beyond five business days. PTG's own advice is to hold a direct CHEP or Loscam account rather than rely on the IOU, because the carrier's charges sit on top of the pool's.

How to return or transfer pallets and close the account

1. Count what is physically on site, by pool and by condition, and compare it with the pallets-on-hire figure on the last invoice. The gap is your exposure.
2. Transfer, do not just deliver. For every load that leaves on pooled pallets, raise a transfer to the receiver's account and get the docket signed. Precise Pallet Management's whole invoice analysis turns on transfer dates.
3. Chase acceptance. A transfer the receiver has not accepted is still on your account. Set a weekly report of unaccepted transfers.
4. Return surplus to a depot. Pallets you are not going to reuse should go back to the nearest CHEP or Loscam depot with a return docket, not into a recycler's truck. Every pallet recycler on our used pallet prices page refuses pooled pallets.
5. Declare damaged pallets. Damaged pooled pallets are handled under the pool's own rules; putting them in a skip converts a repair into a $55 compensation charge and the landfill levy on top.
6. Audit the escrow and suspended balances each month so a distorted balance does not sit for a year.

The waste-side of the same yard

Pool pallets are a supply-chain cost, and specialist auditors exist for them. Bundle Waste does something adjacent: we are a Melbourne-based commercial waste cost broker working with businesses Australia-wide, and the same yards that bleed pallet hire usually also overpay for the general waste, cardboard and bulk bins sitting next to the pallet stack. We audit the waste invoice free, benchmark every charge, renegotiate, and are paid only from the savings. If nothing is found, there is no fee. If your pallet problem is unpooled timber rather than CHEP or Loscam, the pallet collection service and the timber versus plastic disposal comparison cover it, and the waste contract red flags guide shows the clauses to check before you sign anything for the bins.

Sources

• SupplyScope — CHEP vs Loscam pallets (6 Sep 2024) (accessed 2026-09-03)
• Precise Pallet Management — The real cost of a CHEP pallet (18 Nov 2025) (accessed 2026-09-03)
• Precise Pallet Management — Cracking the code: how CHEP charges really work (18 Nov 2025) (accessed 2026-09-03)
• AusPallets — CHEP pallets Australia: specs and how hire works (accessed 2026-09-03)
• Pickering Transport Group — Pallets (IOU rental and restocking charges) (accessed 2026-09-03)
• Smart Pallets — We buy pallets (Dandenong South, Epping) (accessed 2026-09-03)
• Palletwest — Collections and pallet recycling (Perth) (accessed 2026-09-03)
• Tom's Pallets — Free pallet collection Brisbane (accessed 2026-09-03)

Frequently asked questions

Related guides