Tilt-bed or roll-off
One driver, no second machine, and the cheapest version of this job when the site allows it. It needs a long, straight, level run — see the checklist below — because the truck cannot turn while the box is sliding.
Container delivery
Moving a shipping container is a trucking job, not an ocean quote
A lot of people who type this question already own the box, or are about to buy one, and just need it set down on a lot, a driveway or a job site. That is a road move priced on the equipment it takes, the distance past a free-delivery radius, and whether the site can take a straight, unaided slide-off — not a freight-class chart and not a container ship. Nothing below is an ocean-freight page. The figures on it were read from a state permit office and from two container dealers' own published pages on 2026-08-30.
Site access checklistEquipment comparedPriced by a person
The box is the cargo
This page prices the steel itself moving down the road, not goods packed inside one.
The equipment choice sets most of the price
Two different trucks handle this job, and which one shows up changes the quote before distance is even discussed. Container Alliance describes the split on its own site, read 2026-08-30: “20’ containers are delivered on a small roll back truck. Containers over 40ft in length are delivered on our tilt bed trailer.” Both are self-unloading — the driver tilts the bed, sets one end of the container on the ground, and pulls forward so the box slides off under its own weight, with the truck, trailer and container briefly forming one long line.
Flatbed plus a crane or forklift
The fallback when the site is too tight for a straight slide, the ground will not take the weight concentrated under a tilting deck, or the box is loaded rather than empty. Now you are paying for a second piece of equipment and a second set of hands at each end, on top of the truck.
Securement and permits, once it's on a deck
A container riding a standard flatbed is open-deck freight like any other oversize load: tiedown counts, tarping questions and permit thresholds apply the same way. The flatbed shipping rates guide covers those mechanics in full rather than repeating them here.
Weight is not the constraint; length and height are
An empty container is lighter than most people assume for its size — nowhere near a truck's own weight limits. What it needs instead is a deck long enough to hold it and a delivery envelope tall enough to clear the road. The full tare, payload and gross-weight table for a 20 ft, 40 ft and 40 ft high cube box already lives on the container weight guide; the numbers that matter for a road delivery, and that page does not cover, are the box's own height and the legal envelope it has to fit inside.
| Box | Exterior height | Legal height ceiling (Texas, no permit) |
|---|---|---|
| 20 ft or 40 ft standard container | 8 ft 6 in | 14 ft, all vehicles |
| 40 ft high cube container | 9 ft 6 in |
Texas is typical of state limits within a few inches, and it is the state whose figures the site's own flatbed guide already cites. The high cube's extra foot is exactly the margin most decks have left once the container itself, the deck height and any dunnage underneath are stacked up. A standard-height box on most decks clears the ceiling with room to spare; a high cube on the same deck is the load a dispatcher measures twice before dispatching, because the difference between fine and over-height is the twelve inches this table shows.
Empty and loaded are two different jobs
Empty
Tare weight only, usually light enough that a roll-back or tilt-bed truck handles it alone. No cargo securement question for the box itself, because there is nothing loose inside it to shift.
Loaded, staying on the road
Now the axle math includes whatever is packed inside, a tilt-and-slide unload is generally off the table, and the move usually needs a flatbed with a crane or forklift at each end instead of a self-unloading truck.
Loaded, going overseas
A different question entirely, with its own weight-declaration and export-filing rules. The full container ocean-freight guide covers that path for a reader whose box is goods crossing water, not steel headed to a driveway.
The practical effect: "empty container delivery" and "loaded container transport" are priced as different jobs by the same operators, because the equipment and the legal questions both change with the cargo inside.
Why a free-delivery radius turns into a per-mile number
Container dealers and transport operators commonly advertise delivery as included up to a stated distance from their yard, then price every mile past that radius separately — the same logic a furniture store uses for local delivery, scaled up to a nine-thousand-pound box. Neither the included radius nor the per-mile add-on is a published national number: both vary by seller, by region, and by how many trucks that operator has near your pickup point that week. That is the reason this figure is a quote-form answer rather than a chart, the same reason the site's own open-deck rate guide declines to print a per-mile number for freight in general.
What does change the number predictably is distance banding within a given operator's own radius structure: short local moves inside the free zone, a middle band billed per mile, and long moves that start to compete with a dedicated flatbed booking on price. Ask any operator you are quoting for their radius and their per-mile figure directly — it is the one number in this whole job that is genuinely theirs to set, not the market's.
The site-access checklist that kills more moves than mileage does
Two container operators publish nearly identical numbers here, independently, which is a stronger signal than either one alone: Container Alliance and Conex Depot, both read 2026-08-30.
| Requirement | Published figure |
|---|---|
| Straight approach, 20 ft container | 50–60 ft (Container Alliance); 60 ft minimum (Conex Depot) |
| Straight approach, 40 ft container | 100–125 ft (Container Alliance); 100 ft minimum (Conex Depot) |
| Ground condition | Level, or at most a 5° incline (Conex Depot) |
| Turning while unloading | Not possible — the approach has to be a straight line (both) |
| Overhead clearance | Minimum 14 ft height and width; the box rides up to roughly 20 ft high on the truck during the tilt maneuver (Conex Depot) |
Conex Depot states the road surface plainly: “Paved road surfaces such as concrete and asphalt are best for the delivery of shipping containers,” with a rural minimum of a maintained two-lane county road, and rules out loose dirt, sand, flooded or muddy ground, soft soil, grass, ice, snow, steep grades, and anything with a drain, ditch or trench across it. None of that is negotiable at the truck's cab — a driver who arrives to find a curved driveway or a soft lawn where a straight paved approach was promised will decline the drop rather than risk the trailer, and that is the call that turns a booked delivery into a second trip.
How this gets priced
SMKlog does not own tilt-bed trucks or cranes, and does not publish a container delivery rate card for the same reason the open-deck freight guide does not: the honest number depends on equipment availability near your pickup point that week. What to have ready when you send it through freight review: the pickup address, the delivery address, the box size, whether it is empty or loaded, and photos or a description of the delivery site — the approach, the ground, and anything overhead. With those, a person prices the actual job instead of a national average that would not hold for your driveway anyway.
Sending goods packed inside a container across an ocean is a different question with its own page. See shipping a container: FCL cost and export steps for the three-leg pricing, the VGM weight declaration, and the export filing that a full container load requires.
Where these figures come from
- Texas Department of Motor Vehicles, Texas size and weight limits — the 8 ft 6 in width and 14 ft height legal envelope for a loaded vehicle without a permit. Read 2026-08-30.
- Container Alliance, delivery FAQ — the roll-back vs. tilt-bed equipment split and the straight-approach distances by container length. Read 2026-08-30.
- Conex Depot, delivery guidelines — ground condition, road surface standards, overhead clearance, and straight-approach distances. Read 2026-08-30.
- ISO container standard — the 8 ft 6 in standard and 9 ft 6 in high cube exterior heights. These are fixed by the standard rather than set by any seller, which is why dealer spec sheets all print the same two numbers.
These are the publishing operators' own figures, not a nationwide standard, and delivery capability varies by region and by carrier. Confirm site access and equipment with whoever is actually dispatching your truck before you plan around any single number above.
Container moves, asked plainly
How much does it cost to move a shipping container?
There is no single figure, because the job is priced on equipment, distance and site access rather than on a rate card. Most operators quote delivery included up to a stated distance from their yard and price every mile past it separately, and the equipment a straight, level, clear site allows costs less than one a crane has to work around. Send the drop location, the box size and whether it is empty or loaded to freight review for a real number.
What truck moves an empty shipping container?
A 20 ft container rides on a small roll-back truck; anything 40 ft or longer goes on a tilt-bed trailer, per Container Alliance's own delivery FAQ, read 2026-08-30. Both slide the box off unaided at the delivery end. A flatbed plus a crane or forklift at both ends is the fallback when the site cannot take a tilt-bed slide-off or the box is loaded.
Does a loaded container cost more to move than an empty one?
Yes, and not only because it weighs more. A loaded box generally cannot be tilted and slid off the way an empty one can, so the job usually moves to a flatbed with a crane or forklift at each end, the axle math changes, and the load can cross into permit territory that an empty box never touches.
How much room does a delivery truck need at the site?
A straight approach with no turns: roughly 50 to 60 feet for a 20 ft container and 100 to 125 feet for a 40 ft container, per Container Alliance's published figures, corroborated independently by Conex Depot's delivery guidelines at 60 feet and 100 feet. Conex Depot also states the ground must be level or no more than a five degree incline, and that trucks cannot turn while unloading.
Can a 40 ft high cube ride the same truck as a standard 40 ft container?
The truck is the same; the height margin is not. A standard container is 8 ft 6 in tall and a 40 ft high cube is 9 ft 6 in — the two exterior heights the ISO container standard fixes, which is why every dealer publishes the same pair. Texas sets 14 ft as the legal height for a loaded vehicle without a permit, so the extra foot on a high cube is exactly the margin most decks have to spare before overhead wires, a low bridge or the permit line become the actual constraint.