I am using the aws price list api to retrieve on demand price for ec2 instances. As part of the filters there is a field called 'Usage-Type' which has a term box-usage as part of it. What exactly does Box Usage mean? Also, box usage is not present for all instance types, for example, t2.small does not have this usage type in 'eu-west-1' ie, Ireland. What exactly does 'Box-Usage' mean?

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"BoxUsage" and all its variants is the name the cost of running EC2 instances, i.e. the per second charge. There are other charges related to running EC2 instances, like cross zone networking, etc. but "BoxUsage" corresponds to the per hour prices listed on the pricing pages.

The billing data is full of small inconsistencies and weird details, and if t2.small doesn't have a proper value in a specific region I wouldn't be surprised. It's like how m1.small doesn't have the instance type in the usage type column, it's just "BoxUsage" – probably because it was the first and, for a time, only instance type.