Shipping container sizes, measured
Inside, a 20 ft container measures 5.898 × 2.352 × 2.393 m (19′4″ × 7′8½″ × 7′10″) and a 40 ft 12.032 × 2.352 × 2.393 m (39′5½″ × 7′8½″ × 7′10″); below are the outside sizes, doors, weights and pallet counts of all 17, drawn to scale.
The figures people come for
Six common questions, each answered here and drawn to scale.
How wide is a shipping container?
2.438 m8′
Every ISO container is this wide outside. Inside you have 2.352 m.
Container size chart (all 17)How big is a 20 ft inside?
5.898 × 2.352 × 2.393 m19′4″ × 7′8½″ × 7′10″
Length × width × height inside. That is 33.2 m³ (1,172 ft³) of space.
20 ft containerHow big is a 40 ft inside?
12.032 × 2.352 × 2.393 m39′5½″ × 7′8½″ × 7′10″
A little over twice the length of a 20 ft, the same width and height: 67.7 m³ (2,391 ft³).
40 ft containerHow tall is a high cube?
2.896 m9′6″
305 mm (1′) taller than a standard box, on the same floor.
40 ft high cube containerHow many pallets fit in a 40 ft?
25 EUR · 21 US
EUR or US pallets laid out on the inside floor, in one tier, with nothing overhanging.
Pallets in a 40 ft containerHow much can a 20 ft carry?
28,250 kg62,281 lb
That is cargo alone. The box weighs 2,230 kg, and together they may not pass 30,480 kg.
Shipping container weight
Container sizes
Every container at a glance
All 17 specifications in one comparable table: external and internal dimensions, door opening, weights and volume. For pallet counts, type codes and a one-sheet print, see every container in one printable chart.
Beside each figure, its evidence: ISO set by the standard · ✓ 16 sheets that agree, counted · range the sheets disagree · 1 sheet one source. A mark opens the sheets behind the figure.
| Specification | ISO | External dimensions, m | Internal dimensions, m | m³ | Max payload, kg | EUR pallets |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 ft container | 12G1 | 2.991 × 2.438 × 2.591 | 2.831 × 2.350 × 2.393 | 15.9 | 8,860 | 5 |
| 20 ft container | 22G1 | 6.058 × 2.438 × 2.591 | 5.898 × 2.352 × 2.393 | 33.2 | 28,250 | 11 |
| 40 ft container | 42G1 | 12.192 × 2.438 × 2.591 | 12.032 × 2.352 × 2.393 | 67.7 | 28,800 | 25 |
| 40 ft high cube container | 45G1 | 12.192 × 2.438 × 2.896 40 ft high cube container · Outside length 12,192 mm Set by the standard | 12.032 × 2.352 × 2.698 | 76.4 | 28,670 | 25 |
| 45 ft high cube container | L5G1 | 13.716 × 2.438 × 2.896 45 ft high cube container · Outside length 13,716 mm Set by the standard | 13.556 × 2.352 × 2.698 | 86.0 | 27,850 | 27 |
| 48 ft container | — | 14.630 × 2.591 × 2.896 | 14.472 × 2.502 × 2.694 | 97.6 | 25,530 | 36 |
| 53 ft container | — | 16.154 × 2.591 × 2.896 | 16.017 × 2.515 × 2.781 | 111.8 | 25,250 | 40 |
| 20 ft reefer | 22R1 | 6.058 × 2.438 × 2.591 | 5.454 × 2.290 × 2.267 | 28.3 | 27,500 | 10 |
| 40 ft high cube reefer | 45R1 | 12.192 × 2.438 × 2.896 40 ft high cube reefer · Outside length 12,192 mm Set by the standard | 11.583 × 2.290 × 2.545 | 67.5 | 29,380 | 23 |
| 20 ft open top | 22U1 | 6.058 × 2.438 × 2.591 | 5.898 × 2.352 × 2.348 | 32.5 | 28,230 | 11 |
| 40 ft open top | 42U1 | 12.192 × 2.438 × 2.591 | 12.032 × 2.352 × 2.348 | 66.4 | 26,630 | 25 |
| 20 ft flat rack | 22P3 | 6.058 × 2.438 × 2.591 | 5.636 × 2.194 × 2.233 | — | 31,060 | — |
| 40 ft flat rack | 42P3 | 12.192 × 2.438 × 2.591 | 11.652 × 2.374 × 1.955 | — | 40,000 | — |
| 20 ft tank container | 22T1 | 6.058 × 2.438 × 2.591 20 ft tank container · Outside length 6,058 mm Set by the standard | — | 25.0tank capacity | 32,360 | — |
Checked : the outside sizes of the ISO boxes (of the 10 ft, its length and width) set by ISO 668, read in IS 6566:2001, GOST R 51876-2008 and GOST R 53350-2009; the US domestic boxes, which no ISO standard covers, and every other figure against 80 published sheets of 30 lines, lessors, makers and rail and road operators. A sheet agrees within ±5 mm, or ±2 % for a mass and ±1 % for a volume; a maximum gross is a rating and must be the same. Every figure and its sources
The container pack
Sizes, doors, pallets, weights and codes of every container, set out by the job: a PDF to print, an A3 wall chart and an Excel workbook. Free, by email.
- 17 containers, by the job
- 17 container sheets
- 85 owner prefixes
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Which container do you need?
| Your cargo | Book | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Dense and heavy: tiles, metal, paper, liquids in drums | 20 ft container | It reaches the weight limit long before the space runs out, and a 40 ft carries hardly more; older 40 ft boxes carry less. |
| Boxed general goods, up to about 28.2 m³ | 20 ft container | One 20 ft takes it with room for dunnage; a 40 ft would ship air. |
| Light and bulky: furniture, clothing, plastics | 40 ft high cube container | Volume is what you pay for, and a high cube gives the most of it per box. |
| Tall items or double-stacked pallets | 40 ft high cube container | The extra foot is what lets a second tier or a tall machine through the door. |
| Chilled or frozen goods | Reefer container | Only a reefer holds temperature; note it is smaller inside than a dry box. |
| Too tall, too wide or loaded by crane | Open top container | Loads through the roof; for anything wider than the box, a flat rack. |
Will it fit? Find out before you book the container.
Start from what you ship. The planner shows which container takes it, how it stacks, and whether it passes the door, balance and weight checks.
In our test of 4 free planners, ours put 270 cartons into a 20 ft; the next best managed 262. Read the test
Loading: pallets, weight and the things that catch people out
Space is one limit and weight is another. A plan has to pass both.
Pallets per container
Checked : outside sizes set by ISO 668, read in IS 6566:2001, GOST R 51876-2008 and GOST R 53350-2009; every other figure against 32 published sheets of 20 lines, lessors and makers. A sheet agrees within ±5 mm, or ±2 % for a mass and ±1 % for a volume; a maximum gross is a rating and must be the same. Every figure and its sources
Data: ISO 668 (1995 text, read in IS 6566:2001) · Hapag-Lloyd Container Specifications · Maersk Container Specifications · EPAL Euro pallet 800 × 1,200 mm product data sheet (PB 05/2025)
Watch out
- The door is smaller than the room behind it. On a 20 ft or 40 ft standard the opening is 2.280 m high against 2.393 m inside, so cargo that fits the box can still be 113 mm too tall to enter. Container door dimensions →
- A high cube stands 2.896 m (9′6″) tall. On a standard chassis, box and trailer together can pass road height limits; check the route before you book one inland.
- The payload marked on the door is not what a truck may carry. Road limits are set by country and axle arrangement, and are often lower. Shipping container weight →
Track a container
Paste the number off the door or off your bill of lading. We check its check digit, name the company that owns the box — often a leasing company rather than the line carrying it — and send you to the right official tracker. Free, no account, nothing stored.
How the number is built
- MSK
- Owner code
- U
- Equipment category
- 307703
- Serial number
- 8
- Check digit
Worth knowing
We do not show shipment status ourselves; the line carrying the box publishes it.
Special container types
When a dry box will not do: cargo that needs cold, height, width, or to be poured.
Buying a container: what it costs
Typical asking prices in US dollars by size and condition. One-trip is effectively new; cargo-worthy is fit to carry cargo by sea; wind and watertight is for storage.
The numbers in this chart
| Size | One-trip (new) | Cargo-worthy | Wind & watertight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10 ft container | $3,500–5,000 | $2,500–3,700 | $1,900–2,900 |
| 20 ft container | $2,800–4,400 | $1,700–2,800 | $1,300–2,300 |
| 40 ft container | — new forties are almost all high cubes | $2,100–3,400 | $1,700–2,900 |
| 40 ft high cube container | $4,000–5,600 | $2,100–3,500 | $1,700–3,200 |
| 45 ft high cube container | $5,800–8,800 | $3,500–5,300 | $2,700–4,100 |
Prices move with steel, freight rates and distance from a port. Coastal depots are cheaper than inland ones.
Container homes, offices and cabins
One 20 ft gives 13.9 m² (149 ft²) of floor and one 40 ft high cube 28.3 m² (305 ft²). The constraint is width: 2.352 m inside, before insulation. Ceiling height is 2.393 m in a standard box and 2.698 m in a high cube, which is why builders favour high cubes.
Guides
Each guide opens with its answer. They are grouped by what you are trying to do.
I am shipping cargo
Pick a size by cargo density, work out volume, check weight and lay out the floor.
I am tracking a container
Check the number, find who owns the box and open the right tracker.
I am buying a container
Prices by size and condition, what the grades mean and what to inspect.
I am building with one
What the dimensions allow, and what a steel box needs to become a room.
Dimensions and units
What size a container is, in which unit, and how to read the codes painted on it.
Loading and pallets
Choosing a size and filling it: volume, weight limits and floor patterns.
Buying and owning
Prices, condition grades, inspection, delivery and keeping a box secure.
Building with containers
From the first plan to the envelope: what a steel box needs to become a room.
Around the box
The container types, the ships that carry them and their air-freight counterparts.
Our own research
Things we measured ourselves because nobody had published them.
Answers and terms
Short answers to common questions, and the trade vocabulary defined.
Most asked
Tools
9 tools, free, no account. Everything is calculated in your browser.
How we check the numbers
- Set by the standard
- 44
- Confirmed
- 114
- Sheets disagree
- 21
- One sheet
- 12
Checked 19 October 2026: outside sizes set by ISO 668, read in IS 6566:2001 and GOST R 53350-2009; every other figure against 88 published sheets of 30 lines, lessors and makers.
- Every figure comes from one dataset, the same one behind the specification tables, so a guide and a table cannot disagree.
- Where the sheets differ, a page gives the most common figure and the span the sheets print, never one number as if it were the only one.
- A guide opens with its answer. If the first sentence does not carry the verdict and the figure, we treat that as a defect.
- 308 documents read in all, from the standards to the specification sheets; the BIC register, read for each of 85 owner prefixes, counts as one. The sources page lists every document.
What we measured ourselves, and the open data
The vocabulary, in brief
8 terms that the rest of the site leans on.
- TEU
- Twenty-foot equivalent unit — capacity of one 20 ft container, the industry’s unit of count.
- Tare weight
- The weight of the empty container, painted on the doors: 2,230 kg for a 20 ft, within 2 % on 8 of 18 published sheets, which range 2,080–2,570 kg.
- Payload
- Max gross minus tare: the cargo weight a container can take — 28,250 kg for a 20 ft dry box and 28,800 kg for a 40 ft rated 32,500 kg, as most published sheets print them.
- VGM
- Verified Gross Mass — the weighed, documented weight of a packed container required by SOLAS before vessel loading.
- High cube (HC)
- A container 9′6″ (2.896 m) tall instead of the standard 8′6″ (2.591 m), per ISO 668.
- CBM
- Cubic metre — the volume unit of ocean freight. A 20 ft box holds 33.2 m³ (1,172 ft³) inside, per all 18 sheets. See the CBM guide.
- BIC code
- The four-letter owner prefix at the start of a container number — three letters registered with the Bureau International des Containers and the equipment category letter, U for a freight container.
- CSC plate
- The safety-approval plate riveted to the door: max gross, stacking and racking loads, date of manufacture, approval reference and inspection status under the Container Safety Convention; the tare is marked on the door, not here.
Frequently asked questions
What are standard shipping container sizes?
The two standard ISO sizes are the 20 ft container, 6.058 × 2.438 × 2.591 m (19′10½″ × 8′ × 8′6″) outside, and the 40 ft container, 12.192 × 2.438 × 2.591 m (40′ × 8′ × 8′6″), per ISO 668. They hold 33.2 m³ and 67.7 m³. “20 ft” is a nominal size: the box is 19′10½″ long, so that two of them and the gap between take the place of one 40 ft. The 40 ft high cube is one foot taller, at 2.896 m (9′6″). 10 ft and 45 ft units round out the ISO range; 48 ft and 53 ft are US domestic sizes.
What is the difference between a standard and a high cube container?
Height only. A standard container is 8′6″ (2.591 m) tall; a high cube is 9′6″ (2.896 m). On a 40 ft box that extra foot adds 8.7 m³ of capacity.
How much does a shipping container weigh?
Empty, a 20 ft container weighs about 2,230 kg (sheets print 2,080–2,570 kg) and a 40 ft about 3,700 kg. Loaded, a 20 ft is rated to a max gross of 30,480 kg, and most 40 ft boxes to 32,500 kg (per 12 of 15 sheets), as are most high cubes; older 40 ft boxes are rated 30,480 kg and carry less cargo than a 20 ft.
How many pallets fit in a shipping container?
Floor-loaded in one tier: 11 EUR or 10 US pallets in a 20 ft, 25 EUR or 21 US pallets in a 40 ft. These are counted by laying the pallets out on the inside floor, not figures the lines print. Two tiers double those counts when the weight allows and each loaded pallet, pallet included, is short enough: a stack built before loading has to pass the door, so no more than half the door a pallet: 2,280 ÷ 2 = 1,140 mm (3′9″), 2,585 ÷ 2 ≈ 1,290 mm in a high cube; pallets stacked inside the box need only half the inside height, 2,393 ÷ 2 ≈ 1,190 mm (3′11″), 2,698 ÷ 2 ≈ 1,340 mm in a high cube, each rounded down to the centimetre.
How much does a shipping container cost?
Typical October 2026 ranges: used cargo-worthy 20 ft $1,700–2,800; one-trip 20 ft $2,800–4,400; used 40 ft high cube $2,100–3,500; one-trip $4,000–5,600. Coastal markets run cheaper than inland.
What is a TEU?
Twenty-foot equivalent unit — the capacity of one 20 ft container, used to count everything in container shipping. A 40 ft box equals 2 TEU; the largest ships are counted in tens of thousands of TEU.
Which container size do I need?
A 20 ft for dense cargo and loads up to about 28.2 m³, a 40 ft high cube for anything lighter and larger. Cargo denser than about 850 kg per m³ reaches a 20 ft’s weight limit before its space runs out; light, bulky cargo ships cheapest per cubic metre in a 40 ft high cube; above about 28.2 m³ of cargo a 40 ft is almost always the better buy.
How does ContSize check its figures?
Every container figure on ContSize is checked against ISO 668 (read in IS 6566:2001 and GOST R 53350-2009) and 88 published specification sheets of 30 lines, lessors and makers, and carries its status and documents; last read 19 October 2026. Each of the 191 figures has a status: 44 are set by the standard, 114 are printed alike by the sheets within tolerance, 21 differ between sheets (the page gives the most common figure and the span) and 12 rest on one sheet, which the page says. In all, 308 documents have been read; the BIC register, whose page for each of the 85 owner prefixes the tracking tool names was read, counts as one of them; the data sources page lists every figure with its documents and what each one prints.
How big is a shipping container door?
The door opening of a standard 20 ft or 40 ft container is 2.340 m wide and 2.280 m high (7′8″ × 7′6″). That is 113 mm lower than the ceiling inside, so measure tall cargo against the door, not the interior.
Are all shipping containers 8 ft wide?
Almost all: every ISO ocean container is 2.438 m (8′) wide outside, with 2.352 m of usable width inside. Only North American domestic 48 ft and 53 ft boxes (2.591 m) and pallet-wide units are wider outside.
Will a car fit in a shipping container?
Yes: one car fits in a 20 ft container (5.898 m long inside) and two in a 40 ft (12.032 m). Width is the tight dimension, since the door opening is 2.340 m, so mirrors usually have to be folded.
Corrected 4 times, last on see the log