In the business of shipping and moving goods from one country to another by air, sea or road, you often hear this term CBM being used. Short for “cubic meter”, CBM is a widely used unit of measurement in shipping and determines how much you pay for freight.
In this piece, we’ve compiled everything you need to know about CBM so that you can measure your cargo accurately and determine your shipping costs. Read on to know:
Cubic meter or CBM is a measurement of volume of a shipment. It determines how much space your cargo will take up on a ship, aircraft or truck, which in turn will decide how much it will cost to transport.
This is the formula used to measure your cargo volume in CBM (m³).
Say, you have a carton that is 2 metres long, 2 metres wide and 2 metres high. Then, its volume is 2 x 2 x 2 = 8 m³.
And if you have 10 such identical cartons in a single consignment, you can simply multiply the CBM with the total number of cartons to arrive at the total volume is 8 x 10 = 80 m³.
If the cartons are not of the same size, calculate the CBM for each carton by using the same formula and add up the total.
With many of us using containers to ship our goods, it’s important to know how many CBMs can be accommodated in a standa
| 20-ft-containers | CBM | Lenght | Width | Height | Payload |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20' Dry | 33.2 m3 | 5.9 m | 2.3 m | 2.3 m | 28,130 kg |
| 20' Reefer | 28.1 m3 | 5.4 m | 2.3 m | 2.1 m | 29,140 kg |
| 20' Open Top HC | 36.8 m3 | 5.9 m | 2.3 m | 2.3 m | 30,050 kg |
| 20' Open Top | 32.5 m3 | 5.9 m | 2.3 m | 2.6 m | 27,970 kg |
| 40-ft-containers | CBM | Lenght | Width | Height | Payload |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 40' Dry | 67.7 m3 | 12 m | 2.4 m | 2.4 m | 28,750 kg |
| 40' Reefer | 67.7 m3 | 11.6 m | 2.3 m | 2.4 m | 29,580 kg |
| 20' Open Top HC | 36.8 m3 | 5.9 m | 2.3 m | 2.3 m | 30,050 kg |
| 40' Open Top | 66.8 m3 | 12 m | 2.3 m | 2.4 m | 28,450 kg |
| 40' Dry HC | 76.3 m3 | 12 m | 2.3 m | 2.7 m | 28,600 kg |
| 45-ft-containers | CBM | Lenght | Width | Height | Payload |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 45' Standard HC | 86 m3 | 13.5 m | 2.3 m | 2.7 m | 27,700 kg |
rd 20-foot, 40-foot and 45-foot container:
Note: HC means High Cube; Payload is the maximum cargo weight a container can hold
Like containers, pallets – flat structures used to support and secure cargo – come in standard sizes. The most common ones are the 48’’ x 40’’, 42’’ x 42’’ and 48’’ x 48’’1 pallets. One of these standard pallets can accommodate 1.26 m³.
As you can see, a 20ft container has a total capacity of 33 cubic metres (cbm), however in reality there is usually only around 25 cbm of usable space. The contents of a three-bedroom house (furniture, televisions, beds, boxes etc.) will normally fit inside a 20ft container, unless it is much more.
If ‘cbm’ isn’t a useful way of thinking about a container’s capacity, here are some other ways. A 20ft container can hold:
Qatar
UAE 
Bahrain 
Kuwait 
Oman