Freight equipment
20ft dry container
A 20ft container carries close to the same weight as a 40ft one in half the space. That single fact decides almost everything about what goes in it.
- Mode
- Ocean
- Published figures
- 7, each with a named publisher
Half the volume, most of the weight
A 20ft and a 40ft dry container have broadly comparable maximum payloads, while the 40ft holds roughly twice as much space. For cargo that is heavy relative to its size, the 20ft is the right unit: it reaches the weight limit with the space it has, and paying for a longer box would buy volume the cargo cannot use.
This is the practical meaning of cargo that weighs out rather than cubes out. Stone, tiles, machinery parts, liquids in drums, metal products and paper reach the limit on the scale while the box still looks half empty.
The limit that binds is often not the container's
A container may be rated to a gross weight the road leg at either end cannot legally carry. Road weight limits apply to the whole vehicle combination, and they differ between countries and sometimes between roads within one country.
The result is a box that is legal at sea and cannot be moved by road when it lands without splitting the load. Where a consignment is heavy enough for this to be in question, the delivery country's road limits are the number that matters, and they are confirmed for the route rather than inferred from the container rating.
Packing a heavy box is a weight-distribution problem
Loading dense cargo into one end of a container produces a unit that is within its total weight limit and dangerously unbalanced. Axle loads on the road leg are calculated from where the weight sits, not from the total, and a badly distributed box can be over an axle limit while under the gross.
Weight is therefore spread across the floor rather than concentrated, and heavy items are secured so they cannot move in transit — a load that shifts at sea changes the distribution that was correct at packing.
Suited to
What this equipment is for.
- Dense cargo that reaches a weight limit before it fills the space
- Smaller full-container consignments that do not justify a longer unit
- Shippers whose delivery site cannot receive a 40ft vehicle
- Cargo split deliberately across two boxes for weight distribution
Specifications
Published figures, and who publishes them.
These are not industry constants. Each figure below is one named publisher’s statement about its own equipment on the date it was checked, and where publishers disagree the row says so. For a specific shipment, the specification that matters is the one for the actual vehicle or container being used.
20ft
- Internal dimensions
- 5,900 x 2,352 x 2,395 (L x W x H) mmHapag-Lloyd's own example figure, not an industry constant. Measured spread across the four publishers I fetched: length 5,896-5,900 mm (Maersk 5,896; ONE and CIMC 5,898; Hapag-Lloyd 5,900), width 2,350-2,352 mm, height 2,390-2,395 mm. Hapag-Lloyd's page carries the verbatim disclaimer that specifications 'vary depending on their particular manufacturer'. Publish as a named-carrier example or as the range, never as the standard.Hapag-Lloyd — source, checked 2026-08-14
- Door opening
- 2,340 x 2,292 (W x H) mmDoor width is 2,340 mm at Hapag-Lloyd, ONE and CIMC but Maersk prints 2,350 mm. Door height varies most of any dimension here: Maersk 2,274, ONE and CIMC 2,280, Hapag-Lloyd 2,292 mm — an 18 mm spread that matters for anyone checking whether a machine clears the doorway.Hapag-Lloyd — source, checked 2026-08-14
- External dimensions
- 6,058 x 2,438 x 2,591 (L x W x H) mmNeither Hapag-Lloyd nor Maersk publishes external dimensions for dry containers; only the manufacturer does. Corroborated indirectly: ONE prints the identical 6,058 x 2,438 x 2,591 as the outside measurement of its 20ft reefer and 20ft flat rack, so the external envelope is the stable quantity while internals vary. This is a manufacturer sales-portal product page rather than a signed datasheet — lower evidential weight than the carrier equipment guides.CIMC Intermodal Equilink (container manufacturer, part number CIMC-20GP) — source, checked 2026-08-14
- Tare weight
- 2,120-2,350 (CIMC 2,120; ONE 2,150; Maersk 2,280; Hapag-Lloyd 2,350) kg230 kg spread across four publishers — the most variable figure in the whole set, and the one most often published as a single fake constant. Tare is a property of the individual box, stamped on its CSC plate; both Maersk and CMA CGM operate per-container tare lookup tools precisely because no fleet-wide figure exists. Never publish one number.CIMC Intermodal Equilink (low endpoint); high endpoint Hapag-Lloyd at https://www.hapag-lloyd.com/en/services-information/cargo-fleet/container/20-standard.html — source, checked 2026-08-14
- Maximum gross weight
- 30,480 kgUnanimous across all four publishers checked (Hapag-Lloyd, ONE, Maersk, CIMC) — one of only two figures in this entire dataset with no variation at all, so the safest number on the page. Separately, the gross weight actually permitted on the road leg is set by national vehicle weight limits, which is a different constraint and must not be conflated with the container rating.Hapag-Lloyd — source, checked 2026-08-14
- Payload
- 28,130-28,360 (Hapag-Lloyd 28,130; Maersk 28,200; ONE 28,330; CIMC 28,360) kgPayload is simply max gross minus that box's tare, so it inherits the tare variation exactly — all four publishers reconcile to 30,480 kg gross. The 230 kg spread is real. In practice the binding limit is usually the road weight limit at origin or destination, not the container rating.Hapag-Lloyd (low endpoint); high endpoint CIMC at https://www.cimc-equilink.com/products/shipping_containers/standard_container/2996.html — source, checked 2026-08-14
- Cubic capacity
- 33.0-33.2 (Maersk 33; ONE 33.1; Hapag-Lloyd and CIMC 33.2) m3Maersk rounds to whole cubic metres (33 m3), the others give one decimal. Hapag-Lloyd prints 33.2 cbm / 1,172 cbft; CIMC prints 33.2 m3 / 1,170 ft3. This is geometric capacity to the load line and is never achievable in practice once packaging and stow loss are counted, so it must not be presented as usable volume.Hapag-Lloyd (33.2); low endpoint Maersk (33) at https://www.maersk.com/~/media_sc9/maersk/local-information/files/africa/south-africa/important-information/container-type-and-sizes/dry-equipment-specifications-updated.pdf — source, checked 2026-08-14
Considerations
What constrains it.
- Road weight limits at destination, which frequently bind before the container's own rating does
- Weight distribution inside the box, which governs axle loads on the road leg
- Access at delivery: a shorter unit is easier to place, but still needs a vehicle that can reach the site
- Published tare and payload figures vary between operators, so the specification that matters is the one for the actual box
From equipment to load plan
Confirm the unit against the actual cargo.
Suitability depends on the goods, loading method and the specification of the equipment that will actually be used.
European road freight