The 2025 NMFC Density Change: What Shippers Need to Know
On July 19, 2025, the NMFTA moved roughly 2,000 commodities from commodity-based to density-based freight classification — the biggest overhaul in years, still rolling out through 2026. For most general freight, class is now set by density (pounds per cubic foot), not a fixed commodity code. The practical result: your weights and dimensions decide your class and your rate, so accurate measurement matters more than it ever has.
What actually changed
For decades, freight class was tied largely to what you were shipping — a commodity code in the NMFC book. The 2025 reform flips that for most general freight: class now comes primarily from density, the weight-to-volume ratio of the actual handling unit. The NMFTA consolidated thousands of legacy commodity listings, added special-handling flags for freight that needs them, and launched ClassIT+, a new lookup tool, to replace the legacy ClassIT. The scale also gained Classes 50 and 55 at the dense end — which can actually lower the class on heavy, compact loads.
The rollout timeline
This isn’t a single switch — it’s a series of dockets:
Docket 2025-1 took effect July 19, 2025, moving ~2,000 commodities to density. Docket 2025-2 followed in fall 2025 with more cancellations. Docket 2026-1 was released February 6, 2026 and took effect May 23, 2026. More dockets are expected, so treat your NMFC codes as something to re-check periodically, not set once and forget.
Did your class go up or down?
It depends entirely on your density. Heavy, compact freight can drop into a lower class and ship cheaper — the new Classes 50 and 55 reward high density. Light, bulky freight generally climbs to a higher class. There’s no rule of thumb that beats simply running the number for your own freight.
Under the new rules, your freight doesn’t have a class until you’ve measured it. Density is the class.
The mistake that catches everyone: pallet height
The most common density error since the change is leaving the pallet out of the height. A standard wooden pallet adds about 5.5 to 6 inches. Forget it and your declared cube is too small, your density reads too high, and your class looks lower than it is — until the carrier measures the real stack and reclasses it. Always measure floor-to-top, pallet included, to the farthest points.
Carriers now verify automatically
Many LTL carriers have rolled out vision-based dimensioners and precision scales at their terminals. When your declared numbers don’t match the scan, the carrier’s system re-rates the shipment on its own. That’s why an accurate, documented density up front is the whole game now — and it’s the core reason freight gets reclassed and back-billed.
What to do now
Four moves cover most of the risk. Calculate density accurately for every shipment — pallet height included — with the Freight Density Calculator, or aim for a class deliberately with the Target Class Calculator. Update your systems: the classes saved in your TMS, carrier portals, and eBOL templates may still pull from commodity tables that no longer exist. Verify your NMFC item numbers against the current book (the NMFTA’s classification resources and ClassIT+ are the source of truth). And if you ship several different pallets on one line, rate the whole shipment’s aggregate density with the Multi-Pallet Freight Class tool, since that’s where the density math trips people up most.