Sea freight door-to-door from our dock in Lu'an, Anhui to yours takes 50 to 70 days. Air freight runs 10 to 20. Express for small sample letters? 7 to 15 days. That's the whole answer. If you're quoting an install date, put those numbers on the calendar and count backwards.
Look, I've been on this factory floor since 2010. I've built front-lit channel letters, halo-lit letters, lightboxes, and the occasional monument sign. I've also watched project managers blow install dates because they assumed "shipping from China" meant the same as ordering from Amazon. It doesn't.
The ugly truth? Most sign buyers don't account for the 7-15 days of production before the crate even gets sealed. Add that to sea freight's 50-70 days, and you're staring at a 9-11 week lead time from final design approval to delivery. If your client is doing a grand opening in 8 weeks, you're already late unless you pay for air. You're late.
Express courier: 7-15 days door-to-door, but only for small, light orders. Think a sample letter, a small acrylic LED letter, or a single nameplate. Anything bigger than a countertop sign, and the courier cost will make your eyes water.
Air freight: 10-20 days airport-to-airport, plus trucking on both ends. You'll pay $4-12 per kilogram. That sounds fine until you figure a crate of stainless channel letters for a storefront can weigh 150kg. Then a $600-1,800 freight bill on a $1,200 order stops making sense.
Sea freight: 50-70 days door-to-door for LCL (less than container load). That's the default for custom signs. The forwarder consolidates your crate with other cargo, which adds 10-20 days before the boat even leaves.
Here's the part they leave out: the boat ride is the fast part. Consolidation, port handling, customs, and final-mile trucking eat the calendar. They handle your LCL crate 6-8 times between our dock and yours. Every touch is a chance for a forklift tine through your acrylic face.
Port-to-port means the shipping line moves your crate from Shanghai to Los Angeles. Door-to-door means we get it from our factory floor to your loading dock. That gap? That's where projects die.
When you book door-to-door, the freight forwarder handles everything: export customs in China, the ocean crossing, import customs in your country, then trucking. Port-to-port means you're the one arranging pickup at the port. If you don't have a customs broker, your letters sit in a warehouse accumulating demurrage charges.
Look, I've seen this go wrong: a sign shop in Texas ordered a set of front-lit channel letters. They chose port-to-port to save $150. Their crate cleared customs, then sat at the Houston port for nine days because they didn't have a trucker lined up. Nine days of storage fees later, they'd lost the $150 and then some.
Door-to-door from our dock to the US takes that 50-70 days for sea freight. Port-to-port might shave $200-400 off the bill, but you take on the risk. I only recommend it if you've done it before and have a broker on speed dial.
Custom signs are awkward freight. A 10-foot channel letter set doesn't fold into a padded envelope. We build it on steel frames, wrap it in foam, pack it into a carton, then crate it in plywood. That crate might be 3 meters long and weigh 200kg.
Acrylic faces add another layer. For spans over 2.5 meters, we use 5mm or thicker acrylic. That's rigid, but it's also heavy and brittle at the edges. Our packaging is foam, carton, then plywood crate. If someone drops that crate from tailgate height, no foam saves a 3mm acrylic face.
LED signs are electrical goods, not just metal and plastic. Customs can flag your crate for inspection if the wiring doesn't look standard. We run every sign through an 8-12 hour aging test before it ships, but sometimes customs still wants to see the power supply specs.
If you're ordering 304 stainless steel letters, weight is the delay. A set of 20-inch stainless letters can push 60kg. Heavier crates sit at the bottom of LCL containers, which means more handling and more waiting at transshipment points.
US customs will clear a sign without UL listing. Then your local inspector won't. That's the trap. NEC Article 600 governs electric signs in the US. If your sign isn't UL or ETL listed, the inspector can red-tag it after it's already on the wall.
UL 48 certification costs $4,000-15,000 and takes 4-9 months. ETL is the alternative, usually 10-30% cheaper. When we ship to the US, we include the paperwork. If you're buying from a factory that says they have UL, ask for the certificate with today's date. If they hesitate, walk.
For the EU, CE marking is mandatory. CE certification costs 20,000-50,000 RMB and takes 2-8 weeks. Most factories will say they have it. Ask to see the certificate with today's date. Watch them sweat. A missing CE mark can hold your crate at Rotterdam for a week while they sort out re-export or destruction.
IP ratings matter too. IP65 is the minimum for outdoor signs — dust-tight and protected from water jets. But it doesn't mean your sign survives a Florida hurricane. I've had a client argue that. The sign ended up in a ditch after a category 2.
Don't forget the US Section 301 tariff on Chinese goods: roughly 30%. That's not a shipping delay, but you'll pay it at the broker. Budget for it. If your supplier's quote says "DDP" with no mention of tariff, they've already baked it in or they're lying.
Sea freight door-to-door is 50-70 days whether your sign is going to Los Angeles, London, Rotterdam, Sydney, or Vancouver. The ocean crossing differs by only a few days. The destination port is where the chaos starts.
US: account for Section 301 tariff and potential UL/ETL paperwork holds. West Coast ports clear a little faster than East Coast because the boat arrives sooner, but the door-to-door window is the same.
UK and EU: CE marking is your delay risk. If the paperwork is perfect, customs clears in a day. If not, your sign sits. I've seen a single missing declaration add five days to a London delivery.
Australia and Canada: the main variable is quarantine inspection for wood packaging. Plywood crates are almost always heat-treated and stamped. But if the stamp is missing, customs can hold the crate. Make sure your factory uses compliant export packaging.
For a full storefront set of channel letters, sea freight is the only math that makes sense. Factory price for back-lit halo letters runs $35-120 per letter. US retail installed? $400-1,000 per letter. Even with 50-70 days of sea freight, you're saving 50-65% on product versus buying domestic.
Air freight costs $4-12/kg. A 150kg crate of stainless letters means $600-1,800 in freight, and that's before customs brokerage. Air freight gets your letters to you in 10-20 days, but it only makes sense if the client is paying rush fees or you're about to lose the contract.
Express courier at $30-100 for small signs is perfect for a sample or a last-minute acrylic LED letter that got damaged during install. But I've seen shops ship entire lightboxes by courier. One shop paid $900 to express a lightbox that cost $250. The client wasn't happy about the freight line item.
Look, the tradeoff is simple: if you have 9-11 weeks, sea freight keeps your margin fat. If you have 3-4 weeks, air freight saves the job but eats your profit. If you have 7 days, you're not ordering custom signs from China. You're begging a local shop to work nights.
When you buy through a trading company or an agent, every question goes through a middleman. Design approval takes two days because the agent is in a different time zone. Factory-direct means you talk to the engineer who's actually bending the steel.
Our production process runs 10 steps: design confirmation, laser cutting, bending and welding, grinding and polishing, acrylic face CNC, LED assembly, sealing, 8-12 hour aging test, QC inspection, export packaging. Total: 7-15 days. That clock starts the moment you approve the drawing.
If you're coordinating with an agent, add 3-5 days to that just for communication. If you're coordinating with us directly, we can laser-cut your letters the same day we receive your deposit. That doesn't sound like much, but when the sea freight window is 50-70 days, 3 days at the start makes or breaks the install date.
We have a 3,000m² facility with 50+ workers. MOQ is one piece. So if you need one replacement acrylic letter for a damaged storefront sign, we'll build it. You don't have to order 50 letters to make the math work. And one piece still goes through the same QC process, not the "eh, it's just a sample" process.
Can you ship my sign faster than 7 days?
No. Production alone is 7-15 days, and that's if you approve the drawing today. If you need it in 5 days, you don't need a factory in China. You need a local shop and a prayer.
Why is sea freight so slow for just a few letters?
Because LCL means your one crate goes through consolidation, deconsolidation, and 6-8 handling points. The boat isn't waiting for your letters. It's waiting for the other 40 cubic meters of cargo in the same container.
Do I actually need UL for my sign?
If it's going on a commercial building in the US and it's electric, yes. NEC Article 600. Your inspector doesn't care that the LEDs are Samsung. They want the UL or ETL mark. No mark, no sign off.
Can I ship a big sign by express courier?
You can. You shouldn't. Express is for small samples under maybe 30kg. Anything bigger and the courier price will exceed the value of the sign. I've seen it happen. It was embarrassing for everyone.
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