The complete guide to euro pallets

A euro pallet is 1200 × 800 × 144 mm, weighs about 25 kg, and carries 1500 kg as a safe working load in transit.

Those four numbers are where most conversations start and where a surprising number of them go wrong — because a pallet of those dimensions is not necessarily an EPAL pallet, and 1500 kg is only one of three load figures that all get quoted as “the” capacity.

What makes it an EPAL pallet

The dimensions are the easy part. What licences a pallet to carry the EPAL mark is UIC 435-2: the specification that fixes the timber, the moisture content, the number and placement of the nails, the block dimensions, and the marking.

A licensed EPAL pallet carries:

• EPAL in an oval on the left block,
• the licence number, country code and production details on the centre block,
• the IPPC / ISPM 15 stamp where the timber has been heat treated,
• and a control staple on one corner block, added at inspection.

A pallet built to the same drawing without a licence is a “euro-size” or “1200 × 800” pallet. It may be perfectly good. It is not interchangeable in a pallet pool, it cannot be exchanged one-for-one at a receiving bay that expects EPAL, and describing it as EPAL on a delivery note is a claim somebody can act on.

If you exchange pallets, the licence matters. If your pallets go one way and are not coming back, it usually does not — and paying an EPAL premium for a pallet that will be discarded at the far end is a common and expensive habit.

The three load figures

This is the single most confused topic in pallet buying, and the confusion runs in the direction that sounds convenient.

EPAL publishes two figures, not three. Most of what circulates as a third is somebody’s rack rating repeated until it sounded official.

Figure	Value	What it means
Safe working load	1,500 kg	The load EPAL publishes for a compliant pallet in normal handling and transit
Stacked, bottommost pallet	max. 5,500 kg	EPAL’s published condition: laden pallets stacked on a solid, even surface
Racking	no published EPAL figure	Depends on the rack system, beam spacing and load distribution — ask the rack engineer, not the pallet supplier

The 5,500 kg is the one most often misquoted. It is not a generic static capacity for a single pallet, and it should not be reused as a rack rating, a forklift rating, or a safe payload. It describes one situation: laden pallets stacked on a solid, even surface, and how much the pallet at the bottom of that stack may carry.

Racking is where the binding limit usually sits, and it is also where there is no universal number. A pallet spanning beams is supported at two edges with unsupported timber in between, so it carries considerably less than it does on a floor — but how much less is a property of the racking system and the load distribution, not of the pallet. If your goods go into beam racking at the far end of the journey, get the figure from whoever engineered the rack. Planning against a number you read on a pallet datasheet is how a beam gets overloaded.

ISPM 15

ISPM 15 governs wood packaging moving between countries: it must be heat treated (or, historically, fumigated) and stamped.

• Inside the EU, pallets moving between member states do not require ISPM 15 treatment.
• Leaving or entering the EU, they do. That includes the UK since 2021, which caught a lot of people out.
• The stamp shows the country code, the producer’s registration number, and HT for heat treatment.

An untreated pallet arriving at a border that requires ISPM 15 is refused, returned, or destroyed at the importer’s cost, and the goods on it are stuck with it. It is not a fine — it is a delivery that does not happen.

Two practical points. Heat treatment is not the same as kiln drying, though they are often done together, and a KD stamp alone is not compliance. Repaired pallets have to be re-stamped — a pallet repaired with untreated timber has quietly stopped being compliant while still carrying the old mark.

New, used or one-way

	New EPAL	Used EPAL, grade A	One-way / lightweight
Typical weight	25 kg	25 kg	9–18 kg
Safe working load	1500 kg	1500 kg	500–1200 kg
Exchangeable	yes	yes	no
Right for	pooling, racking, heavy loads	pooling, most distribution	export where the pallet does not return

The arithmetic that decides it is simple and rarely done: if the pallet is not coming back, its price is a cost of the shipment. A one-way pallet at half the price and half the weight also takes weight off a payload-limited load, which on a full trailer can be worth more than the pallet.

The arithmetic that argues the other way: a lightweight pallet that collapses in transit costs the goods on it. Match the pallet to the load, not to the invoice.

Grades of used pallet

• Grade A — clean, no repairs or one repaired board, light colour. Suitable for most distribution.
• Grade B — visibly used, several repairs, darker. Fine for internal use and for scrap or waste streams.
• Anything below that is firewood being sold as a pallet.

Grading is not standardised between suppliers. Ask what a grade means to them, in words, before ordering a load.

How many fit

Vehicle	Euro 1200 × 800	Industrial 1200 × 1000
Curtainsider 13.6 m	33	26
Rigid 7.2 m	18	14
40 ft container	25	21
20 ft container	11	10

Single tier, floor loaded. Double stacking doubles them where the height and the load allow.

You will sometimes see 34 quoted for a 13.6 m trailer. Turn the pallets so the 800 mm side runs along the trailer and seventeen rows of two is 34 pallets in exactly 13,600 mm — with nothing left over. It works on paper and not on a loading bay. Every forwarder our factories ship with quotes 33.

The truck and pallet load calculator works this out for your case size as well, and tells you whether the load runs out of floor or out of weight first.

Empty pallets travel badly

A detail that costs money and is almost never mentioned: a trailer of empty pallets is a volume load, not a weight load. A 13.6 m trailer takes roughly 600 to 700 empty euro pallets stacked, which is about 17 tonnes — comfortably inside the payload but tight on height.

If you are buying pallets in quantity, buy them by the full load. A part load of pallets pays the same freight as a full one for a fraction of the goods, and it is the single biggest driver of the delivered price.

What a quotation should state

Line	Why it matters
EPAL licensed, or euro-size	It is a different product and a different price
New, or used with the grade defined in words	“Grade A” means different things
ISPM 15 treated, or not	Decides whether it can leave the EU
Safe working load, and what the racking system allows	The one that binds is usually the rack, and the rack figure does not come from the pallet
Moisture content	Above 22% it will mould in a container
Pallets per load	Empty pallets are quoted per truck, not per pallet

Moisture is the one people forget. A pallet at 25% moisture sealed into a container for four weeks arrives with mould on it and, often, on the goods it carries. Specify the maximum, and for sea freight specify kiln dried to 18% or below rather than accepting “heat treated” as an answer to a different question.

What to send us

Tell us where the pallets go, whether they come back, and what happens to them at the far end — racked, floor stacked, or straight into a machine. Those three answers change the specification more than anything on the datasheet.

If you are currently buying new EPAL for a one-way export, that is the first thing we will look at, and it is usually the largest single saving in a pallet programme.