Differences between american and european pallets

The words pallet is one of the most important words from the transport and logistics vocabulary , as it’s a basic peace for the storage and transport of goods.

But did you know that not all pallets are the same? 

There are pallets with different dimensions and characteristics used around the world but the main ones are the American pallet and the European pallet.

¡Learn the main difference in our new video!

 

American pallets & European pallets

The main difference between the two is their dimensions. The American pallet is bigger (1200mm X 1000mm) and heavier (30Kg aprox.), and the European pallets are a bit smaller (1200mm X 800mm) and lighter (25Kg aprox.). Do you know why?

During the Second World War, when transporting materials from the United States to Europe, turned out American pallets were too big for European trains and made transport and cargo handling difficult. A smaller version was created to fit perfectly in the European trains and use better the space of the wagons to transport even more cargo.

With time a subcategory of the europallet was created, the Display Pallet, which is half of a standard European pallet (600 × 800 mm). Those are the ones most used on supermarkets.

With the general use of pallets, it was during the 60’s when the first regulations and standarizations were created. European pallets, or europallets, follow the   EUR or EPAL standard, and American ones (or universal/standard) follow ISO Standard 6780: 2003 Flat pallets for intercontinental materials handling — Principal dimensions and tolerances, which was revised and confirmed in 2020. That’s why sometimes does pallets are also called isopallets.