A dry port is an inland intermodal terminal, connected by road or rail with one or more maritime terminals"), with the ability to postpone customs control until entry into the dry port. A dry port expedites the movement of goods between ships and inland road networks, creating a centralized distribution point.

In addition to its role in transshipping goods from one mode of transport to another, a dry port may include facilities for the storage and consolidation of goods, land freight transport companies (road or rail), and customs brokers. These facilities make it possible to speed up the departure of goods from ports to their destination, contributing to decongesting the ports themselves.[1]​.

Many seaports cannot expand their surface area; For this reason, it seems appropriate to relocate certain functions to an inland location, away from the coast. Since dry port facilities are built on industrial land, without the spatial restrictions of a "historical" port, work processes can be optimized. A dry port promises faster cargo handling, shorter waiting times for ships, lower fuel consumption and CO savings.

Obviously, a dry port can be related to an airport terminal. It can serve several seaports.

The definition of “dry port” (also known as “inland cargo terminal”)[2] provided by UNCTAD is as follows:

These services can be grouped into:[3]​.

The term "dry port" indicates a terminal specialized in international intermodal container traffic. Instead of loading and unloading goods at ports, containers can be transshipped from ship to truck to train. The container can be transferred again between train and road vehicle at another geographical point and the goods are only loaded (at origin) and unloaded (at destination) once.[1]​.

Some operations traditionally carried out in the seaport can be carried out in another location. Examples of these operations are: reception, temporary storage, customs clearance, inspection, classification and consolidation of containers with the same destination abroad, compilation of freight trains and transfer to trucks. Thus, the transshipment of containers at the seaport can be accelerated and the space dedicated to the storage and handling of containers can be reduced by moving these operations to an inland space, away from the seaport and the coast.

Distribution can gain efficiency by establishing a connection between the dry port and the sea port through a high-capacity train, with lower transportation costs per unit than sending containers one by one by truck. The containers, both in collection and final distribution, are transported by road, with transshipment in the dry port.