How big is a cubic meter? What's the shipping volume?

Cubic meter is the standard unit of volume in international cargo transportation. In shipping goods from the USA overseas, it may correspond with cubic feet.

One cubic meter is equal to approximately 35 cubic feet. Look at the picture of how big the cubic meter is.

In respect of international cargo transportation, the volume of one cubic meter is quite large. If you're shipping goods from the USA in boxes, then you can fit many shipping boxes of different sizes in the volume of one cubic meter.

Look at the picture. Now you should get an idea of how many shipping boxes you can fit into one cubic meter. Click on it to watch a video on YouTube and see the volume containing just one cubic meter.

If shipping goods from the USA LCL, then intentional freight rates are calculated in cubic meters or cubic feet. It means that in sea freight shipping, as a rule, the weight of shipping goods is not a pricing factor. Most of the time, you can disregard the weight of shipping goods.

However, in multimodal international cargo transportation by sea, freight rates in the ground parts of transportation are calculated per kilo or lbs.

You can find more about a cubic meter in shipping cargo from the U.S. abroad on our website.