What is a TEU?
A TEU, or twenty-foot equivalent unit, is the standard way to count container capacity and volume. A forty-foot container is two TEU.
Explainer, updated 2026-09-19 (19 September 2026).
Explainer
TEU stands for twenty-foot equivalent unit. It is a standard measure of container volume based on the most common small container size, twenty feet long. A forty-foot container counts as two TEU.
Why it exists
Containers come in different lengths, so counting boxes alone would mix sizes. Converting to TEU lets ports and carriers compare volumes and ship capacity on one scale. A container ship’s size is often given in TEU, meaning how many twenty-foot boxes it can carry.
In our data
Our port series count ship calls, not containers, so TEU does not appear in them. Where an event record or a source quotes a container volume in TEU we report it with its source and date and do not mix it with our own counts.
See ports and the methodology.