Oversized Cargo Shipping Checker

In practice it is anything a parcel network will not take as a standard carton: palletised or crated freight, wooden cases and aviation boxes, pieces too heavy to lift by hand, and items whose dimensions put them outside the parcel conveyor. On our card the dividing line is explicit — parcel lanes accept cartons only, while the oversized lanes accept crates, wooden frames, pallets and aviation boxes. If your cargo is on a pallet or in a crate, it is oversized freight even when it is small and light.

Two components. First the head-haul, charged per kilo of chargeable weight: the UK oversized lanes run RMB 7.5/kg by sea and RMB 41/kg by air, and the Europe sea oversized lane is priced by destination weight tier and postcode zone from RMB 10.41/kg. Second the destination delivery, charged per pallet — on the UK lane that is RMB 630 to RMB 1,200 depending on the postcode zone, and the Europe sea lane prices it inside the per-kilo rate. Chargeable weight is the greater of actual and volumetric weight, at a divisor of 6,000 for sea and 7,000 for the oversized air lane.

UK oversized lane: maximum 100 × 120 × 200 cm and 800 kg per pallet. Europe sea oversized lane: maximum 2.4 × 2.0 × 2.2 m and 1,000 kg per pallet. Wooden packing needs hinged lids and 10 cm forklift feet so the case can be lifted without being broken into. Anything above those limits is not impossible — it is a break-bulk or flat-rack conversation, and we price it per shipment rather than quoting a band.

Because parcel and standard air lanes are built around cartons: they run on conveyor systems, girth limits and automated sorting, so a pallet or a crate physically cannot enter the network. Our card states it as a rule — parcel lanes: cartons only, no wooden crates, frames or pallets. The oversized lanes exist for exactly that cargo, and on the UK lane the difference is a per-pallet delivery fee rather than a per-parcel rate.

Yes, on both oversized products. The Europe sea oversized lane starts at a 50 kg tier and rises in fifteen tiers to 2,000 kg+. The oversized air lane has a 30 kg minimum per shipment. Below those weights the shipment is still billable at the minimum, which is why consolidating several small crates into one pallet usually beats sending them separately — and why the checker above shows you the chargeable weight before you decide.

Our card refuses it on US air lanes — that is a hard restriction of the airline network, not a pricing choice. Girth is the longest dimension plus twice the sum of the other two. If a piece falls foul of it, the route is sea rather than air, or splitting it into two lighter pieces. The checker flags this before you book, because discovering it at the airport costs you a week and a re-pack.

UK sea oversized: 40–45 days sailing plus 2–3 working days for delivery after clearance. UK air oversized: 9–12 days plus 2–3 working days. Europe sea oversized: 45–55 days door to door via Rotterdam or the Benelux clearance points; Europe oversized air: 9–12 calendar days to pickup. Storage at destination is free for 7 days on the Europe sea lane, then RMB 4–6 per CBM per day — a warehouse that is not ready is the most expensive delay on a large shipment.

We specify it and inspect it: hinged lids, 10 cm forklift feet, goods braced so nothing shifts in a sea crossing, and photographs before the case is closed. Building the case itself is normally done by your supplier or a packing shop we introduce near the factory. On palletised cargo we also check the pallet size against the destination limit before it is loaded, because an oversized pallet is refused at the dock, not at booking.