A standard 40 ft dry container weighs 3,640 kg (about 8,020 lb) empty. A 20 ft weighs 2,150 kg (about 4,740 lb) empty. Those are tare figures — the steel box itself, before anything is loaded into it — published by Ocean Network Express in its dry container specifications at us.one-line.com/dry-containers, read 2026-08-28.
Tare weight is what the container weighs with nothing in it. Everything you load goes on top of that.
Three numbers describe every steel container: how much it weighs empty (tare), how much cargo it is rated to carry (payload), and the combined ceiling for both together (maximum gross weight). The table below pulls all three for a 20 ft, a 40 ft, and a 40 ft high cube dry container from one carrier's published equipment sheet.
| Container | Tare weight (empty) | Max payload | Max gross weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20 ft standard | 2,150 kg about 4,740 lb | 28,330 kg about 62,460 lb | 30,480 kg about 67,200 lb |
| 40 ft standard | 3,640 kg about 8,020 lb | 26,840 kg about 59,170 lb | 30,480 kg about 67,200 lb |
| 40 ft high cube | 3,700 kg about 8,160 lb | 28,800 kg about 63,490 lb | 32,500 kg about 71,650 lb |
Tare plus payload equals max gross in every row, which is how a container's rating works: the steel eats into the allowance before a single pallet goes in. That is also why the 20-footer is rated to carry more cargo by weight than the 40-footer despite being half the length — its lighter tare leaves more of the shared 30,480 kg ceiling for freight.
A 40-footer's extra sidewall, extra floor and extra roof panel add roughly 1,500 kg of tare over a 20-footer. That weight rides on the same gross ceiling as the cargo, so it comes straight off the payload before anything is packed in.
On most general cargo, a 40 ft box fills its cubic capacity long before it gets near 26,840 kg. The extra payload headroom a 20-footer carries per foot of length matters mainly to shippers moving something dense — steel coil, canned goods, palletized water.
Every individual container carries its own stamped weight markings near the door end. If a scale ticket, a bill of lading or a customs form needs to match the specific box in front of you, read that plate rather than a published nominal spec.
Published figures also move a little between container lines and between a new box and a twenty-year-old one with a few coats of repaint on it. Treat the table above as representative of a current standard steel dry container, not as the one true number for every box in service.
Tare weight matters for two practical reasons beyond curiosity. First, it is part of VGM — the packed container's confirmed gross mass, the figure a shipper has to declare to the ocean carrier before a full container is loaded, which our container shipping cost guide covers in full, sourced from Maersk's own published requirement. Second, it decides what a road tractor can legally carry once the box is on a chassis: a heavy tare on a 40-footer eats into the truck's own gross weight allowance before a single pound of cargo is added, which is why a "full" 40 ft container by volume can still be legally overweight on the highway leg long before it hits 26,840 kg of freight.
None of that is a price. A container move is quoted by a person against the ports, the commodity, the packed weight and the ready date — see the cost guide above for what goes into that number. This page answers one narrower question: what the box itself weighs before anything is put inside it.
Container lines revise their equipment sheets without notice, and the exact tare on any single box depends on its manufacturer, age and repair history. The figures above are what one carrier published on the date shown; the number stamped on your own container is the one to use for a filing that has to be exact.
3,640 kg, about 8,020 lb, for a standard 40 ft dry container. That is the tare weight — the box itself, with nothing loaded — as published in Ocean Network Express's dry container specifications, read 2026-08-28. A 40 ft high cube runs heavier at 3,700 kg, about 8,160 lb, because its taller sidewalls carry more steel.
2,150 kg, about 4,740 lb, empty. Same source: Ocean Network Express's published dry container specifications, read 2026-08-28.
26,840 kg, about 59,170 lb, is the maximum payload Ocean Network Express publishes for a standard 40 ft dry container. Very few loads actually reach that; road weight limits at either end usually run out first.
In the specifications cited on this page, both sizes are rated to the same 30,480 kg (67,200 lb) maximum gross weight. The 40-footer's extra steel adds to its own tare, and tare comes straight out of the payload allowance — which is why the shorter box is actually rated to carry more cargo by weight, not less.
On the box itself. Every container carries its own stamped weight markings near the door end, and that figure, not a published nominal spec, is what a scale ticket or a customs declaration should match. Published figures shift a little between container lines and between a new box and an old one; the plate on your specific unit is the one number that is never approximate.