How many CBM in a 20ft container?
The quick answer
A 20ft standard container has about 33.1 cubic meters of space inside, or 1,169 cubic feet. The inside is 5.90 m long, 2.35 m wide and 2.39 m high, and the door opening is 2.34 m wide and 2.28 m high.
- Pallets on the floor — 9 US pallets (48 × 40 in) or 11 Euro pallets in one layer.
- Payload — about 28,200 kg (62,170 lb). The box itself weighs about 2,300 kg.
- Half the space of a 40ft, about the same weight limit — which is why dense cargo goes in 20ft boxes.
- Planning a load? Try the container loading calculator.
A 20ft container holds about 33 m³ (CBM), 9 US pallets or 11 Euro pallets on the floor, and counts as one TEU. It is the box for smaller full-container loads and for dense, heavy cargo that reaches the weight limit before it fills the space.
Internal volume
33.1 m³
1,169 ft³
GMA pallets
9
single layer
Euro pallets
11
single layer
Max payload
28 t
28,200 kg
20ft Standard container dimensions
These are the inside measurements, the space you can actually load. The outside size, the door opening and the other boxes are side by side on the shipping container dimensions page.
| Internal length | 5.9 m | 19' 4" |
| Internal width | 2.35 m | 7' 8" |
| Internal height | 2.39 m | 7' 10" |
| Capacity (CBM) | 33.1 m³ | 1,169 ft³ |
| Max payload | 28,200 kg | 62,170 lb |
| Equivalent | 1 TEU | 20' GP · 1 TEU |
Why 9 US pallets fit, not 10
The floor is 5.90 m (232 in) long and 2.35 m (92.5 in) wide. Pallets of 48 × 40 in go two across with the 48-inch side along the box: four rows take 192 in, and the last 40 in holds one more pallet turned sideways. That makes 9. Many guides say 10, but ten would need five 48-inch rows, 240 in of floor, and the box has 232. Euro pallets (1,200 × 800 mm) fit 11. With stackable goods and weight to spare, a second layer doubles both counts.
How many cartons fit in 33.1 m³?
Take a 60 × 40 × 40 cm carton (0.096 m³). On paper, 33.1 m³ holds 344 of them. Loaded all the same way up, 9 fit along the 5.90 m, 5 across and 5 high: 225 cartons, about 65% of the space. Turning part of the load, or a carton size that divides the box better, gets closer to the paper figure. Try your carton in the container loading calculator.
Weight, not volume, is usually the 20ft's real limit
Divide the 20ft's ~28,200 kg payload by its 33.1 m³ interior and you get a break-even density of about 852 kg/m³. Any cargo denser than that — ceramic tile, paper reels, canned goods, rice, beverages, metal parts — hits the weight ceiling before the box looks full. That's exactly why the 20ft exists alongside the 40ft: it offers about the same payload as a 40ft (28,200 kg, against roughly 26,700 to 28,800 kg) in half the space, so dense freight isn't paying to ship air.
For US imports there is a second limit. On the highway, the whole truck (tractor, chassis, container and cargo) is capped at 80,000 lb gross, which often leaves less legal cargo than the box's rating. Heavy shippers load to what their trucker can legally carry, use overweight permits, or transload at the port.
What the 33 CBM looks like in practice
The nominal 33.1 m³ assumes perfect cube utilisation, which real cargo never achieves. Palletised freight loses volume to pallet decks, stacking gaps and the space above the top layer, so a planning figure of 25–28 m³ is realistic; loose-loaded ('floor-loaded') cartons pack tighter and can approach 30 m³.
On the floor, nine 48 × 40 in pallets or eleven Euro pallets fit in one layer. Built to about 1.1 m each, a second layer still passes under the 2.28 m door opening, for eighteen US or twenty-two Euro positions, as long as the lower layer can carry the load and the total stays under the weight limit.
Frequently asked questions
How many CBM is a 20ft container?
33.1 m³ inside, or 1,169 ft³. Some carriers round it to 33 m³. Plan on loading less, because cartons and pallets never fill every corner.
How many pallets fit in a 20ft container?
9 standard US pallets (48 × 40 in) or 11 Euro pallets on the floor. Ten US pallets would need 240 in of floor; a 20ft has about 232 in inside.
What is the heaviest cargo for a 20ft container?
About 28,200 kg (62,170 lb) of cargo in Blue Water Shipping's spec, in a box that weighs about 2,300 kg empty. Check the CSC plate on the door for your box. On US roads, the truck's 80,000 lb gross limit may allow less.
What is the difference between a 20ft and a 40ft container?
The 40ft is about twice as long inside (12.03 m against 5.90 m), so it has about twice the space: 67.6 m³ against 33.1 m³. Its weight limit is about the same as a 20ft's, so heavy cargo goes in 20ft boxes and bulky cargo in 40ft ones.