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Freight class 50What freight class 50 means.
Class 50 is what density-based freight weighing 50 pounds per cubic foot and above classifies as. It is subprovision 13 of the thirteen-subprovision density scale.
What lands here
Extremely dense metal products — tightly packed steel hardware, ingots, dense cast components.
That is an example, not a rule. Class 50 is not a kind of product — it is a density. The same item can be class 50 packed one way and something else packed another, which is why no honest list of “class 50 commodities” exists.
What that looks like on a pallet
A standard 48 by 40 pallet stacked to 48 inches is 53.3 cubic feet. To classify as class 50, a shipment on that pallet needs to weigh at least 2,665 lb.
Take weight off and it climbs. Under 50 PCF the same pallet is class 55.
Which is the point: a few hundred pounds, or a few inches of stack height, moves freight between classes. Run your own numbers.
Whether this changed in July 2025
Docket 2025-1 moved a great deal of freight onto this density scale that had previously carried a fixed class. If you ship on an item number that moved, the class you have always used may not be the one a carrier applies now.
Most class charts online predate that change and still list commodities against fixed classes. What changed in Docket 2025-1.
The floor of the scale. Anything at 50 pounds per cubic foot or above lands here, however heavy it gets beyond that.
Not sure the class you ship on is still right?
Send us up to 10 of the NMFC item numbers you use. We will tell you which are current, which moved in July 2025, and which look wrong for what you actually ship.