TEU (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit)

A TEU is a standardised measurement unit in the shipping industry based on the dimensions of a standard 20-foot container (approximately 6.1 metres long, 2.44 metres wide, 2.59 metres high). A standard 40-foot container equals 2 TEUs. TEU is used to express the capacity of container ships, the throughput of ports, and the volume of containerised trade. For example, Hamad Port has a capacity of several million TEUs per year.

TEU provides a universal metric for comparing port capacities, shipping line fleet sizes, trade volumes, and logistics infrastructure investment. When Qatar reports that Hamad Port handled a specific number of TEUs in a year, this figure enables direct comparison with other major ports worldwide. For businesses, understanding TEU equivalents helps in planning container requirements and estimating shipping costs.

A Forty-foot Equivalent Unit (FEU) equals 2 TEUs. In practice, most ocean containers shipped today are 40-foot high-cube units (1 FEU = 2 TEUs). When calculating container requirements, a 40-foot container provides approximately 67 cubic metres of internal space and a maximum payload of about 26 tonnes, depending on the container specification and shipping line's weight policy.