CORE TERM
TEU (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit)
The standard unit of measurement for container capacity, based on the dimensions of a 20-foot ISO shipping container.
TEU stands for Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit. It is the standard unit of measurement used to describe the capacity of container ships, ports, terminals, and logistics systems. One TEU equals the volume of one standard 20-foot ISO shipping container (20 feet long × 8 feet wide × 8'6" tall, approximately 1,360 cubic feet). A standard 40-foot container (by far the most common in US trade) counts as 2 TEUs.
Ports, shipping lines, and terminals use TEU as their primary capacity and throughput metric. When a port reports handling "19.9 million TEU per year" (like the LA/Long Beach complex), this means the combined equivalent volume of 19.9 million 20-foot containers. In practice, most of that volume consists of 40' containers, each counted as 2 TEU.
For drayage purposes, TEU is most relevant as a pricing unit: some port fees (like PierPASS at LA/LB) are assessed per TEU, meaning a 40' container incurs twice the fee of a 20' container. Drayage rates are typically quoted per container move regardless of TEU count, though overweight, hazmat, and reefer surcharges may also reference TEU.