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Freight class 65What freight class 65 means.
Class 65 is what density-based freight weighing 22.5 to 30 pounds per cubic foot classifies as. It is subprovision 10 of the thirteen-subprovision density scale.
What lands here
Metal hardware and dense machine parts, in compact cartons or crates of steel components.
That is an example, not a rule. Class 65 is not a kind of product — it is a density. The same item can be class 65 packed one way and something else packed another, which is why no honest list of “class 65 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 65, a shipment on that pallet needs to weigh between 1,199 and 1,599 lb.
Take weight off and it climbs. Under 22.5 PCF the same pallet is class 70.
Add weight and it falls. Over 30 PCF it becomes class 60.
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.
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.