FCL
One container, one shipper. The price is the container, not the cargo inside it, so a lightly loaded FCL booking is rarely worse value than filling every cubic foot.
Ocean freight
What is ocean freight?
Ocean freight is cargo moved by vessel across international water, sold either as a whole container or as shared space inside one. DHL Freight Connections' logistics dictionary defines it as a mode of carrying large volumes of cargo across the sea; the Federal Maritime Commission's own rule for an ocean common carrier goes further and ties the term to a border, requiring the route to run between a US port and a foreign port. This page draws the boundary against air freight and against domestic trucking, then points to the two pages on this site that already cover the mechanics in depth. Both sources were read 2026-08-31.
FMC.gov rule, read 2026-08-31DHL glossary, read 2026-08-31No invented prices
A vessel, and a border it has to cross
The word does two jobs at once: it names the mode and, under federal rule, it names a route that starts or ends outside the country.
The border test that makes it "ocean" freight
The Federal Maritime Commission does not regulate every vessel moving cargo on water; it regulates ocean common carriers, and its own page on vessel-operating common carriers, read 2026-08-31, sets the test in plain language: a carrier qualifies when it "holds itself out to the general public to provide transportation by water of passengers or cargo between the United States and a foreign country for compensation." The same page requires that the carrier operate a vessel on the high seas or the Great Lakes running between a port in the United States and a port in a foreign country. Drop the foreign port from that sentence and the same ship, the same containers and the same cargo are no longer doing what the rule calls ocean common carriage — they are moving domestic freight instead, the subject of this site's domestic freight guide.
That is why the two glossary pages sit on opposite sides of one line rather than describing two unrelated things. Ocean freight is defined by a border it has to cross. Domestic freight is defined by the absence of one.
FCL and LCL, in one paragraph each
Once cargo is confirmed to be moving by ocean, the next question is whether it fills a container on its own. DHL Freight Connections' dictionary entry for full container load, read 2026-08-31, states plainly that FCL "is a shipment type where a cargo occupies the full size of a container." The alternative is less than container load, where your pallets share a container with other shippers' pallets and the carrier bills by volume rather than by box.
LCL
Shared space, billed by volume or weight, plus consolidation charges at both ends that do not shrink much when the shipment does. This site's own LCL guide covers the published container capacities and the customs filing deadline in full, so it is not repeated here.
Neither is a price
An ocean rate depends on the origin port, the destination, the season and the commodity. Nothing on this page states one, because no page can state one honestly without those four facts in hand.
Where ocean freight splits from air freight and from domestic trucking
Three modes get lumped into one conversation whenever cargo needs to move a long way, and DHL Freight Connections' own dictionary entries describe each with a different emphasis. Ocean freight, again, is framed around carrying "big amounts of cargo across the sea." Air freight, defined on the same dictionary as "another term for air cargo — the shipment of goods through an air carrier," is described as most valuable for moving express shipments around the globe. Neither entry states a transit time or a rate, and neither should be read as a universal rule: a rush LCL booking can beat a slow air routing on a bad week, and the honest comparison always needs the actual lane in hand.
Domestic trucking is the third leg, and it is not really a competitor to the other two so much as what happens after either of them ends. A container that clears US customs still needs a truck to leave the port, and that truck is priced and regulated the same way any other domestic freight move is, covered on the page linked here. This site's own freight shipping guide covers the boundary between a parcel and a freight shipment inside the United States, and the breakbulk guide covers the ocean cargo that skips containers altogether.
Where these definitions come from
- Federal Maritime Commission, Vessel-Operating Common Carriers — the ocean common carrier test tying the term to a US-to-foreign-port route. Read 2026-08-31.
- DHL Freight Connections, What is Ocean freight? — the sea-freight definition. Read 2026-08-31.
- DHL Freight Connections, What is FCL shipping? — the full container load definition. Read 2026-08-31.
- DHL Freight Connections, What is Air Freight? — the air cargo definition and the express-shipment framing. Read 2026-08-31.
Maersk's and MSC's own glossary pages did not load for this page on 2026-08-31 (both returned server errors on repeated attempts); DHL's published dictionary entries stood in for the carrier-glossary source instead.
Ocean freight questions
What is ocean freight?
Cargo carried by vessel across the sea rather than by truck or aircraft. DHL Freight Connections, in its logistics dictionary read 2026-08-31, defines it in one line: “Ocean Freight also referred to as sea freight is a mode of carrying big amounts of cargo across the sea.” The Federal Maritime Commission's own rule adds the border test: a carrier only counts as an ocean common carrier when it moves cargo between a port in the United States and a port in a foreign country.
What is the difference between FCL and LCL?
Whether you rent the whole container or a slice of it. Full container load, FCL, is cargo that occupies the entire container by itself. Less than container load, LCL, is the opposite: your pallets share a container with other shippers' pallets and you buy volume instead of the box. This site's own LCL guide covers the mechanics, the container sizes, and the customs filing deadline that catches first-time importers.
Is ocean freight the same thing as international freight?
Ocean freight is one mode inside international freight, not a synonym for it. International freight also travels by air, and a single overseas order often does both: an ocean or air leg across the border, then a domestic freight or parcel leg once it lands. The FMC's own jurisdiction only reaches the ocean leg, and only when it crosses between a US port and a foreign port.
How is ocean freight different from air freight?
Volume against speed. DHL Freight Connections describes ocean freight as carrying big amounts of cargo across the sea, and describes air freight as most valuable for moving express shipments around the globe. Neither definition states a price or a transit time, because both vary too much by lane and season to print as a flat rule; the pattern they describe is a container ship built for volume against an aircraft built for speed.
Does SMKlog price ocean freight?
No. SMKlog's checkout prices USPS, UPS and FedEx parcels moving inside the United States. An ocean move, FCL or LCL, goes through freight review, where a person quotes the origin port, the destination, the container or volume, and the paperwork rather than a rate card returning a number in seconds.