20ft & 40ft Full Container Load Shipping

What a full container load involves

A full container load is simply a steel box, delivered empty to your address, loaded with your cargo alone and then sealed until it is opened by the consignee. Nobody else's goods share the space, so there is no consolidation step, no intermediate handling and no risk of your cargo being mixed up with someone else's pallets. That makes FCL the natural choice once a shipment fills roughly half a 20ft box or more.

It suits a wide range of customers: households moving abroad with a full container of furniture, exporters sending machinery or stock to an overseas distributor, and traders shipping vehicles, building materials or retail goods in bulk. The common thread is that the cargo owner wants control over loading, sealing and the exact contents travelling in one unit.

Equipment options and how loading works

Standard dry containers come in 20ft, 40ft and 40ft high-cube sizes, giving different combinations of floor space and cubic capacity for the same running cost of the box itself. Where cargo will not fit inside a closed unit, open-top containers allow loading from above by crane, and flat racks carry oversized or irregular items with no walls or roof at all.

On the day, a driver delivers the empty container on a skeletal trailer and you are given a free loading window, typically two to three hours, before demurrage or waiting time applies. Our loading team or your own staff can load the box; either way we recommend photographing the load as it goes in, since that record settles any dispute about condition or count later.

Lashing and bracing matter as much as the loading itself. Vehicles need wheel chocks and ratchet straps to load rings, furniture needs void-filling so nothing shifts in transit, and machinery often needs timber cradles bolted to the floor. We can arrange professional lashing and issue a photographic loading report if you want independent evidence of how the container left the UK.

Collection points and UK port network

Containers can be loaded almost anywhere: private driveways, farms, industrial estates, auction houses and construction sites are all routine collection points, subject to reasonable trailer access for a 40ft unit. If access is tight, we can advise on using a shorter box, a different vehicle or a nearby loading point instead.

Once loaded, the container moves to the port that fits the sailing you have booked. Felixstowe and Southampton carry the bulk of UK deep-sea container traffic, with London Gateway, Liverpool and Tilbury covering other lanes and coastal feeder connections. We choose the port on the basis of carrier routing and transit time rather than simple geography, so the fastest total journey sometimes means a longer road leg to a different terminal.

• 20ft, 40ft and 40ft high-cube dry containers
• Open-top containers for over-height or crane-loaded cargo
• Flat racks for oversized and irregular freight
• Weekly sailings from Felixstowe, Southampton, London Gateway, Liverpool and Tilbury

Customs formalities and paperwork

Every FCL export needs a customs declaration before the container can be loaded on the vessel, along with a verified gross mass submission confirming the total weight of box and cargo. We prepare and lodge both, working from your commercial invoice and packing list, and we flag anything that needs an export licence before it becomes a delay at the port.

The bill of lading is the key document on an FCL shipment: it is your proof of shipment, your title to the goods and the document your consignee needs to collect the container at the other end. We issue it as soon as the vessel sails and can produce a telex release or express release where a paper original would slow the destination collection down.

How FCL is priced and what changes the cost

Ocean freight for a full container is quoted as a flat rate per box on the chosen trade lane, so the cost does not change with how full the container is once you have committed to the size. What does change the price is equipment type, the season, and how much time you need at origin and destination, since extended free time or weekend loading both carry additional charges.

We quote three ways so you can compare like for like: port-to-port, where you organise your own haulage at both ends; door-to-port, covering UK collection with the receiver arranging local delivery; and door-to-door, a single all-in figure from your address to theirs. The door-to-door figure is usually the easiest to budget against, because local destination charges are agreed in advance rather than billed on arrival.

Transit times and preparing your cargo

Transit time depends entirely on the trade lane and whether the vessel calls directly or transships through a hub port. As a guide, North European short-sea routes take a matter of days, the Mediterranean and Middle East a couple of weeks, and long-haul lanes to the Far East, Australasia or the Americas can run four to eight weeks door to door once haulage and clearance are added.

Preparation is straightforward but easy to underestimate. Fragile items need proper crating rather than just cardboard, boxes should be clearly marked with room or reference numbers if you are shipping a household move, and an accurate, itemised packing list saves real time at customs on both ends. Where the destination country restricts certain goods, tell us before loading, not after the container has sailed.

Common mistakes we help customers avoid

The most frequent problem is underestimating loading time and running into demurrage before the container even leaves the UK. A close second is vague or missing paperwork, particularly commercial invoices that do not describe the goods clearly enough for customs to classify them without a query.

We also see shipments delayed because a destination country restriction was not checked in advance, or because a container was booked to the wrong size and cargo had to be split at the last minute. Talking through the load plan with us before booking avoids all three.

What happens when the container arrives

On arrival, the container is discharged from the vessel, moved into the terminal and made available once import customs clearance is complete. Our overseas agent network or your own nominated agent handles the destination formalities, and the consignee is contacted to arrange collection or onward delivery.

If the destination address cannot take a full-size trailer, the container can be devanned at a local depot and the goods delivered on a smaller vehicle instead. We flag this option at the quoting stage wherever the delivery address looks unlikely to suit a 40ft artic.