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Freight class 55What freight class 55 means.
Class 55 is what density-based freight weighing 35 to 50 pounds per cubic foot classifies as. It is subprovision 12 of the thirteen-subprovision density scale.
What lands here
Very dense metal products. Tightly packed steel parts, fasteners, heavy castings.
That is an example, not a rule. Class 55 is not a kind of product — it is a density. The same item can be class 55 packed one way and something else packed another, which is why no honest list of “class 55 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 55, a shipment on that pallet needs to weigh between 1,866 and 2,665 lb.
Take weight off and it climbs. Under 35 PCF the same pallet is class 60.
Add weight and it falls. Over 50 PCF it becomes class 50.
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.
Freight this dense is usually building material or something shipped without much packaging around it.
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.