What is a TEU in shipping?

In the logistics world, TEU is an acronym that stands for twenty-foot equivalent unit that describes a multimodal shipping container whose dimensions are 20 feet long, eight feet wide and eight feet tall. One TEU can generally accommodate between nine and 11 pallets.

The TEU unit of measure is used to calculate the cost of shipping, as rates are quoted according to TEU. The term is also used to describe the capacity of container ships, the largest of which can carry between 18,000 and 24,000 TEUs.

Sometimes the TEU data field will indicate “0”. This means that the cargo was not shipped in a container, but was LCL, or Less than Container Load.