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Instantly compare container shipping rates with air, ocean, and trucking freight quotes from vetted providers. Find the balance of price and transit time that works for you.
Refreshingly easy logistics management with on-demand tracking, live updates, and proactive issue resolution from providers you can trust.
Our Freight Team is available to help with every step of the shipment process, from documentation to container shipping prices to delivery specifics.
Instantly compare container shipping rates with air, ocean, and trucking freight quotes from vetted providers. Find the balance of price and transit time that works for you.
Refreshingly easy logistics management with on-demand tracking, live updates, and proactive issue resolution from providers you can trust.
Our Freight Team is available to help with every step of the shipment process, from documentation to container shipping prices to delivery specifics.
There are many factors that determine the cost of FCL (full container load) container shipping. These factors will impact your shipping container transport cost and ultimately how much it’ll cost to ship a container overseas.
Here are some of the most important ones:
An international container being sent from Shanghai to Los Angeles, for example, is always going to be less costly to ship than one being sent on a less common route.
The standard container dimensions are 20 and 40 feet. But there are also other variations, including different sizes and refrigerated units.
The global freight industry is dictated by basic economics. During the busiest shipping seasons, container rates go up – sometimes substantially.
Below is a port-to-port container shipping rates chart for cost ranges of common international shipping destinations (from Shanghai, China):
| Destination country | 20’ Container | 40’ Container |
| United States (Los Angeles) | $13,475 | $18,500 |
| United States (New York) | $15,000 | $22,000 |
| United Kingdom (Felixstowe) | $12,000 | $18,000 |
| Germany (Bremerhaven) | $11,100 | $18,000 |
| Australia (Melbourne) | $5,700 | $10,000 |
You can view live international freight rates, prices and trends, updated daily from the world’s largest freight rate index on the Freightos Baltic Index (FBX).
As a marketplace for international container shipping, Freightos.com leverages volumes of live pricing data from vetted logistics providers on our platform.
Use the cost calculator and keep up to date with container shipping pricing trends to get a better idea of what your total landed costs will be.
When comparing prices for container shipping and transport, the size of the container will affect the price.
While there are over a dozen different sized containers, 20-foot (TEU) and 40-foot (FEU) containers are the most frequently used.
What fits in a TEU will determine the cost of shipping. The cost also depends on the type of goods transported and how efficiently these can be packed and loaded into the container.
The dimensions of a TEU are as follows:
Therefore, the total cubic capacity of a TEU is 1,172 cu ft (33.2 m3) and the payload capacity is 55,126.9 lbs (25,000 kg).
This means that a 20-ft container can generally accommodate 9-10 standard pallets.
An FEU has double the capacity of a TEU, but is not charged at double the price.
If you want to ship a 20-foot container instead of a 40-foot container, it’s worth noting that the latter usually costs just 20-25% more than the former.
These are the dimensions of a FEU:
The total cubic capacity of an FEU is 2,389 cu ft (67.7 m3) and the payload capacity is 61,200 lbs (27,600 kg).
This means you can fit between 20-21 standard pallets in an FEU.
Container shipping rates and prices are determined by the form of the cargo, the mode of transport, the weight of your goods, and the distance and popularity of the delivery destination from the point of origin.
Understanding the total cost of importing or exporting your goods is vital to determining the total landed cost of the goods and what your bottom line will be. Check out the Container Shipping Cost Calculator to help you estimate what it will cost to ship your goods.
The cost of container shipping has increased dramatically over the last couple of years, however rates appear to be stabilizing (at least for now).
While in September 2021, it cost over $20,000 to ship a container from China to the United States West Coast, in June 2022 the prices is half that at $9,500.
This rate is still 4x higher than in June 2020 when container shipping rates from China to the United States was around $2,500.
