According to the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the maximum weight of a 40-foot container with standard cargo must be 67,200 pounds. It should be noted that sometimes international carriers, both trucks and container carriers, do not accurately verify the weight of each loaded container, so the containers may be overweight before being loaded onto the truck for delivery. These are specific for shipping liquids in bulk and can carry between 10,000 and 24,000 liters of non-hazardous liquid, depending on the size of the container. However, the adjacent states of Indiana (95,000 at most) and Wisconsin (90,000 at most) cannot allow fully loaded containers (with limited exceptions for bulk products, such as cereals or charcoal).
A scan of the weight and overweight permits of state and federal vehicles reveals several different options for operations with 40-foot containers. They are used to keep the goods inside the container at the same temperature as they were when they were loaded. Ohio considers international containers to be a non-divisible cargo when traveling within the state to an Ohio intermodal facility when the shipment is destined for a destination outside the United States. However, the truth is that no exception can be expected for overweight shipments or any leniency on the part of states when it comes to violations of weight limitation.
Of course, there are proven 20-foot heavy container units capable of carrying up to 27.50 tons of cargo, but they still have the same cubic capacity as these containers are modified to carry such heavy loads. Many different companies offer shipping containers with a variety of options, such as repainting, anti-condensation treatment, and sometimes even electrical accessories. Sometimes, weight restrictions for shipments can seem arbitrary, especially when they vary significantly from state to state on what appear to be identical road systems. The limits and restrictions include the tractor, the chassis and the container, in addition to the load, and all of these elements may vary from state to state and from shipment to shipment. In a 20-foot container designed to be packed with 33.50 m³ of cargo, a weight of 21.75 tons can be loaded.
Don't forget that if you have large objects, there will be a lot of unusable space, so you should ask your supplier before assuming that you can fit 28 cubic meters of merchandise in a 20-foot container. Pennsylvania grants permits for the movement of international sealed, maritime and container cargo weighing up to 40.8 t (90,000 pounds) in a 40-foot tall cubic container; on the contrary, although the volume capacity increases to 76.0 m³ due to the additional height of 1 foot, the load capacity remains around 26.50 tons due to the increase in the tara of the 40-foot tall bucket. In Missouri, containers are treated similar to that in Illinois, where ISO containers are considered non-divisible loads and are given routine overweight permits through a tridem or quad-axle arrangement.
