FCL, full container load, means you book a container. You pay for the box, not for what is in it. A half-empty 40ft costs what a full one costs. The container is sealed at origin and, on a well-run lane, that seal is not broken again until it reaches your premises or your broker's yard.
LCL, less than container load, means you book space by volume inside a container shared with other shippers' cargo. Your goods are delivered to a container freight station at origin, consolidated with other consignments, shipped, and separated out again at a container freight station at destination. You pay per cubic meter for the space you occupy, plus the cost of the consolidation and deconsolidation work at both ends.
The consequence that drives everything below: LCL is a service with fixed cost components, FCL is a rental with almost none. That is why the comparison flips at a certain volume rather than scaling smoothly.
LCL is quoted per cubic meter, but it is billed on weight or measure: whichever is greater between one cubic meter and one metric tonne, the "revenue tonne". For ordinary consumer goods, volume wins and you pay per CBM as expected. For dense cargo, weight wins and your effective rate climbs without the quoted rate changing at all.
Cargo that routinely bills on weight rather than volume: tiles and stone, hardware and fasteners, liquids, batteries, machinery parts, printed matter, canned goods. If you are importing any of these, take the quoted per-CBM rate as a floor, not a price.
On top of the per-CBM rate sit charges that are largely independent of how small your shipment is:
| Charge | Basis | Effect on a small shipment |
|---|---|---|
| Origin CFS / consolidation | Per shipment or per CBM | Fixed element hurts disproportionately |
| Destination CFS / deconsolidation | Per shipment or per CBM | The most common surprise line on an LCL invoice |
| Terminal handling, both ends | Per shipment | Flat, so the smaller the cargo the worse the ratio |
| Documentation | Per bill of lading | Flat |
This is why a two-CBM shipment can carry an effective landed cost per cubic meter three times that of a twelve-CBM shipment on the identical lane at the identical quoted rate. Always ask for the all-in number for your volume, not the rate card.
The breakeven arithmetic depends on knowing what a container actually holds, which is not its nominal capacity. Nominal figures assume perfect stowage of uniform boxes. Real cargo does not stow that way.
| Container | Nominal CBM | Realistic usable CBM | Max payload |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20ft standard | ~33 | 25–28 | ~28 tonnes |
| 40ft standard | ~67 | 54–58 | ~26 tonnes |
| 40ft high cube | ~76 | 62–68 | ~26 tonnes |
Note the payload inversion: a 20ft carries more weight than a 40ft, because the weight limit is a road and handling constraint rather than a volume one. Dense cargo goes in 20ft boxes; light bulky cargo goes in 40ft high cubes. An importer of tiles who books a 40ft because it sounds bigger will hit the weight limit at half the volume and pay for air.
That is the volume answer. On Caribbean lanes it needs three adjustments.
Adjustment one: destination handling cost. Deconsolidation is expensive where facilities are thin and competition is limited. On the larger gateways with real container freight station capacity, LCL's destination charges are competitive. On small islands where one or two operators handle everything, they are not, and the breakeven can arrive several cubic meters earlier than the generic numbers suggest.
Adjustment two: relay handling. Every China-to-Caribbean shipment transships at least once. An LCL consignment can be re-handled at the relay hub in ways an FCL box is not, because a sealed container simply moves between vessels while loose consolidated cargo may be reworked. More touches, more exposure.
Adjustment three: free time and demurrage. FCL comes with free time at destination and demurrage and detention charges after it. If your clearance is slow, that clock costs real money and can erase the FCL saving. LCL cargo sits in a CFS under different, generally more forgiving, storage terms. An importer with an unreliable broker is sometimes better off in LCL at a nominally worse rate.
Cost is not the only variable, and on several of these the answer is unambiguous regardless of volume.
That last point is underrated. In a shared container, you inherit other people's paperwork problems.
Under FCL you typically hold a bill of lading issued by the carrier for your container. Under LCL you hold a house bill of lading issued by the consolidator, against a master bill of lading the consolidator holds with the carrier. Practically, that means your counterparty for anything that goes wrong is the consolidator, not the shipping line, and the quality of that consolidator is therefore a larger part of your risk than the choice of carrier.
It also means release at destination depends on the consolidator's agent, which is one more party who has to be functioning. On lanes where a single agent handles a whole island, that concentration is worth knowing about before you book.
On China-to-Caribbean specifically, the practical guidance is:
Interworld Freight runs both as separate services, LCL consolidation and full container load, so the mode recommendation is not steered by which one we would rather sell. The full lane picture, including how the relay structure affects both, is in shipping from China to the Caribbean, and the cost components are broken out in China to Caribbean shipping cost. Destination-specific handling constraints are covered in the individual guides, including Jamaica, the Dominican Republic and Barbados.
FCL means you book an entire container and pay for the box regardless of how full it is. LCL means you book space by volume inside a container shared with other shippers, paying per cubic meter for the space you occupy plus consolidation and deconsolidation charges at both ends. FCL is effectively a rental with few fixed costs; LCL is a service with significant fixed costs, which is why the comparison flips at a certain volume rather than scaling smoothly.
Under roughly 12 to 15 CBM, LCL is almost always cheaper. Between 15 and 20 CBM, price both ways. Above roughly 20 CBM, a full container usually wins on cost per cubic meter and also removes about a week of consolidation and deconsolidation time. On smaller Caribbean islands with limited deconsolidation capacity, the breakeven arrives several cubic meters earlier.
LCL is billed on whichever is greater, one cubic meter or one metric tonne, known as the revenue tonne. Ordinary consumer goods bill on volume. Dense cargo such as tiles, hardware, liquids, batteries and machinery parts bills on weight, so the effective rate rises even though the quoted per-CBM rate has not changed.
Realistically 25 to 28 CBM in a 20ft standard, 54 to 58 in a 40ft standard, and 62 to 68 in a 40ft high cube. Nominal capacities are higher but assume perfect stowage. Note that a 20ft carries more weight than a 40ft, roughly 28 tonnes against 26, so dense cargo belongs in the smaller box.
When the cargo is fragile, high value, odour or moisture sensitive, or when schedule certainty matters more than cost. LCL cargo is handled at two container freight stations and shares space with unknown consignments, and in a shared container an inspection triggered by another shipper's goods delays yours too. On a lane that already transships at least once, reducing handling points has real value.
A sealed FCL with a single consignee is generally the simpler entry. LCL cargo must first be deconsolidated at a container freight station, which adds two to five days before clearance can even begin, and it exposes you to delays caused by other shippers in the same container. Against that, FCL carries demurrage and detention clocks after its free time expires, so a slow broker can make FCL the more expensive option in practice.