TEU
Twenty-foot equivalent unit
A TEU is a twenty-foot equivalent unit, the standard measure of container volume. One 20-foot container counts as one TEU and a 40-foot as two.
What it is
TEU stands for twenty-foot equivalent unit. It is the standard unit for counting containers and expressing capacity in liner shipping, based on the length of a 20-foot ISO container. One 20-foot container equals one TEU. A 40-foot container equals two TEU, also written as one FEU, or forty-foot equivalent unit. The unit measures length only, not weight or internal volume.
How it works in practice
Vessel capacity, port throughput, trade volumes and slot allocations are all stated in TEU. A ship described as carrying several thousand TEU could hold that many 20-foot boxes or half as many 40-foot ones. Conventions differ for other sizes: a 45-foot container is counted as two TEU in many statistics and as 2.25 in others, and high cube containers count the same as standard height.
Why it matters
TEU gives carriers, agents and ports one number for comparing volume across mixed equipment. Slot charter agreements, agency commissions and performance targets are frequently set per TEU, so the count has a financial effect. It should not be confused with the number of containers or bookings: ten 40-foot containers are ten boxes and twenty TEU, and reports usually need to show both figures.
In Sailix
How Sailix handles it
Sailix has no separate TEU screen. It derives TEU from the size of each container type, counting a 20-foot as one and a 40-foot or longer as two. The Booking Container Register and Booking Register reports total TEU by sailing month and destination, and the vessel master records each vessel's capacity in TEU.
- Reports and analyticsRegisters, stock and voyage reports, financial statements and an analytics dashboard, with Excel and PDF output.
- Container inventoryOne screen for container stock across ports, terminals, CFS, ICD and depots, with masters for containers, types and locations.
- Liner bookingGroup bookings under an export master job for each line and vessel voyage, and book accepted quotations with containers, revenue and cost.
Related terms
- Shipper-owned containerA shipper-owned container is a container supplied by the shipper or its forwarder rather than by the carrier. The carrier only provides the slot on the vessel.
- NVOCCAn NVOCC is a carrier that sells ocean freight under its own bills of lading without operating ships. It buys space from vessel operators instead.
- Terminal handling chargeA terminal handling charge is a fee the carrier collects from the shipper or consignee. It recovers the cost of handling a container at the port terminal.
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