Trailer types explained: what each semi-trailer body carries

A tractor unit is half a vehicle. It carries the driveline, the cab, the fuel and the driver; the freight rides behind the fifth wheel, in a semi-trailer whose body decides the loads that can be handled at all and, as the figures below show, how much of the trailer’s rated weight is left for them.

The figures below are manufacturer-published and attached to a named model; where a difference between two of them is worked out here, the sentence says the arithmetic is ours. Where a maker publishes no weight, none is given here. Swap bodies, which stand on support legs and can change vehicles, have their own page.

Curtainsider: sliding sides, portal doors and, on some, a crane-loadable roof

Kögel lists the CO body of its Cargo as a lateral sliding tarpaulin with tarp tensioners mounted on the external frame, a sliding roof and portal doors, and offers it “optionally with lifting roof” to raise the through-loading height “for side loading”. Loading from above depends on the maker and the order: Schmitz Cargobull says the standard Safety Roof on its S.CS UNIVERSAL can be slid and stopped in an open position “for loading and unloading by crane”, while on Krone’s Profi Liner the sliding roof can be opened from front to rear for overhead crane loading as an option.

Krone’s Profi Liner in the SDP 27 eLB50-CS specification is quoted at a 13,620 mm load compartment length, 2,480 mm width, a clear side height of 2,600–2,700 mm at the lower edge of the external beam, a dead weight of 5,940 kg, a 27,000 kg axle load, a 12,000 kg fifth-wheel load and a 39,000 kg permissible total weight, from which the technically possible payload is given as approximately 33,060 kg; the full record for that variant, including the lower German registration and operating weights Krone printed in a build description for one trailer of that type, is the Krone Profi Liner page.

Schmitz Cargobull’s S.CS UNIVERSAL is quoted differently but lands in the same place: an internal body length of 13.62 m or 15 m, internal width 2,480 mm, internal height up to 3,050 mm — the maker footnotes the height as depending on the saddle height and the legal framework conditions — and, across that data block, 34, 37 or 40 Euro pallets, or 26 ISO pallets, without saying which count goes with which length. Body strength is certified to DIN EN 12642 Code XL, which is a statement about the structure of the body itself and belongs to the separate subject of load securing. Kögel lands in the same place from a third factory: its CARGO P90, the three-axle version with a 90 mm frame neck, is published at a 13,620 mm loading area length clearance, a technically feasible axle load of 27,000 kg, vertical load of 12,000 kg and overall weight of 39,000 kg, and a tare of 5,920 kg in basic configuration — both qualifiers Kögel’s own — and all ten published Cargo variants are set out on the Kögel Cargo page.

The shared deck length is not a figure the law prints. Council Directive 96/53/EC Annex I names no deck length; what it draws is an envelope, and both of its semi-trailer length points are measured from the kingpin rather than from either end of the trailer: at most 12.00 m from the axis of the fifth-wheel king pin to the rear of a semi-trailer (point 1.6), and at most 2.04 m from that axis to any point at the front (point 4.4). The 15 m body in the same Schmitz data block is longer than the 14.04 m those two points add up to — our arithmetic — so on our reading its legal basis lies outside Annex I. Both belong to semi-trailer dimensions, which is a subject in its own right rather than a specification line.

The volume variant is worth pricing rather than assuming. Krone’s Mega Liner SDP 27 eLG50-CS shares the 13,620 mm length, the 2,480 mm width and the 39,000 kg rating, but sits at a lower coupling height of 960–1,160 mm and reaches a clear side height of 2,595–2,845 mm, or 3,000 mm on mesh box width. Its dead weight is 6,350 kg. Volume therefore costs 410 kg against the standard Profi Liner — our subtraction from Krone’s two figures, not a Krone figure.

Box: what a hard wall costs

A box trailer replaces curtains and posts with rigid panels. Krone sells its Dry Liner on “Security for sensitive goods” and names clothes, high-quality electronics, paints and furniture among what it carries.

Krone’s Dry Liner SDK 27 eLB41-STG is published at the same 13,620 mm internal length and 2,480 mm internal width as the Profi Liner, at 2,715 mm internal height, with a dead weight of approximately 7,890 kg against the same 39,000 kg rating and a technically possible payload of 31,110 kg. The wall therefore costs about 1,950 kg of payload — again our subtraction from two published Krone figures, and approximate because the first of them is.

Reefer: charged in weight and in space

A refrigerated trailer is an insulated box body with a cooling unit, and the two are not always weighed together.

Krone quotes the Cool Liner SDR 27 eL4-S at a tare weight of 7,630 kg without cooling unit — the qualifier is theirs — with a 12,000 kg king pin load, 27,000 kg axle load and 39,000 kg permissible total weight. No payload figure is published for it. The box also gives up internal space: 13,310 mm internal length, 2,460 mm internal width and 2,630 mm internal height, against 13,620 mm and 2,480 mm on the curtainsider.

So Krone’s reefer weighs 1,690 kg more than its curtainsider before the cooling unit is fitted, and gives up 310 mm of deck length that the pallet plan has to absorb. Both differences are our arithmetic on Krone’s published figures. Anyone specifying temperature-controlled work on this trailer should establish the weight of the specific cooling unit separately, because Krone’s figure excludes it. Schmitz Cargobull states the field differently: its technical data for the S.KO COOL SMART with the EXECUTIVE PLUS package, which combines the trailer with Schmitz Cargobull’s own S.CU refrigeration unit, prints “Empty weight, complete” as 7,960 kg with “+/- 3%” attached, so the S.KO COOL SMART record and the table below cannot be set against each other until what each tare includes has been read.

Tipper: the body decides the cargo

A tipper unloads by tilting its body. Schmitz Cargobull’s 2019 S.KI brochure said of its hydraulic tailgate that, thanks to the integrated pendulum function, the tailgate “opens according to the tilt of the body”. Schmitz Cargobull’s 2019 S.KI brochure gave tare weights by body material, and they show what material choice was worth in that generation.

The S.KI SOLID with a rounded steel body was given with an empty weight from 5.5 t and construction bodies with volumes from 21 to 36 m³. The S.KI LIGHT with an aluminium box body was given from 4.8 t. Both figures carry the maker’s footnote depending on configuration and equipment, and both predate the new generation of frames and bodies Schmitz Cargobull announced in September 2022, with production scheduled to start at the end of the first quarter of 2023 and the new S.KI described as “up to 280 kg lighter” against a reference S.KI SOLID 7.2; the current-generation datasheet behind the S.KI SOLID model page carries no unladen weight row at all. Steel buys wear resistance for abrasive materials — the 2019 brochure names sand, gravel, additives and asphalt — and aluminium buys payload, the same brochure pitching it at slightly abrasive bulk such as sand, gravel and stone chips over long distances. Schmitz Cargobull’s current parameters for the S.KI LIGHT are an aluminium box body of 24 to 59 m³ on a steel chassis, two or three axles, and a body depth of 1,350 to 2,300 mm.

For the road-construction work the maker named, the 2019 brochure gave thermal insulation a published line of its own: an unladen weight from 5,790 kg for the rounded steel body with thermal insulation, and from 5,170 kg for the fully insulated aluminium box body on the LIGHT chassis, with the insulating elements themselves quoted from 310 kg and from 380 kg respectively.

Silo and tank: Feldbinder quotes volume, not weight

Silo trailers carry powdery and free-flowing goods — Feldbinder names building materials, pelletized products, foodstuffs and activated carbon — and tankers carry liquids. Feldbinder publishes its silo ranges by volume: its EUT silo semi-trailers in a range of 31 to 60 m³, with flexible chamber partitioning, and its KIP tipping silo semi-trailers in a range of 38 to 66 m³. The partitioning is published against the EUT range only, so it is not carried across to the KIP range here. Feldbinder separates its tank semi-trailers by duty — neutral liquids, hazardous goods to ADR, and foodstuffs. What the hazardous-goods duty demands of the trailer and of its paperwork is set out in ADR dangerous goods vehicles.

Feldbinder publishes no tare weight against those ranges, so none is given here.

Skeletal: the lightest trailer in the table

A skeletal, or container chassis, has no body of its own — only a frame with container locks. The container it carries is the load space.

The lightest figure comes with a lower rating, so it is not a like-for-like saving. Krone’s two-axle Box Liner SZC 18 eL20, built for 20 ft containers only, is published at an approximate dead weight of 2,800 kg, an 18,000 kg axle load, a 12,000 kg fifth-wheel load, a 30,000 kg permissible total weight and an approximate payload of 27,200 kg. The extendable Box Liner SDC 27 eLTU6 Universal 45, which Krone describes as suitable for all common container sizes, is published at approximately 5,700 kg dead weight, with a 14,000 kg fifth-wheel load, a 27,000 kg axle load, a 41,000 kg permissible total weight and approximately 35,300 kg payload. Krone prints no axle count against that model, so none is given here; what is published is the 27,000 kg axle load against the eL20’s 18,000 kg. At the same 27,000 kg axle load as the Profi Liner, the eLTU6’s approximately 5,700 kg is 240 kg under the curtainsider’s 5,940 kg — our subtraction, approximate because Krone’s figure is.

Set the eLTU6 against the 39,000 kg curtain, box and reefer trailers above: its permissible total weight is 41,000 kg because its fifth-wheel load is 14,000 kg rather than 12,000 kg while its axle load is the same 27,000 kg — our arithmetic on Krone’s numbers.

Low loader: the deck comes down

Where the cargo is a machine rather than a pallet, the deck comes down: Nooteboom’s current MCO(S) product page gives its MCOS semi low-loader a “Loaded floor height approx. 860mm in drive position”. Nooteboom’s OSDS-48-03V(EBW), announced in February 2021, is a three-axle extendible semi low loader with a self-tracking axle, a 4,750 mm extendable loading floor and deep wheel wells, published at a deadweight of only 8,700 kg and a payload of up to 39 tonnes at 80 km/h — the speed qualifier is the maker’s and it matters. Nooteboom draws the comparison itself: from then on, it said, the deep wheel wells let larger wheel loaders and articulated dump trucks up to 39 tonnes travel on this semi low loader, where previously that was only possible with a low loader.

Read that payload against the road rather than against the trailer. Deadweight plus the maximum payload comes to up to 47.7 tonnes at 80 km/h on the trailer alone — our addition of Nooteboom’s two figures — before a tractor unit is coupled to it. That is above every maximum weight Annex I of Council Directive 96/53/EC sets for an articulated vehicle with five or six axles: 40 tonnes, or 42 and 44 tonnes where the semi-trailer carries one or more containers or swap bodies of up to 45 feet in total “in intermodal transport operations”, the 44 tonnes only behind a three-axle motor vehicle; the Annex says those weights “shall be increased” by the weight of zero-emission technology “with a maximum of” 2 tonnes — our comparison against the Annex. Article 4(2) of the Directive says member states “may nonetheless authorise” vehicles for the national transport of goods that do not conform to, among other points, the weight points of Annex I, so whether a movement of that order may be made at all, and on what authorisation, is answered nationally rather than by the trailer’s rating. That is the ground of gross vehicle and gross combination weight, and it is a different question from the one the payload column below answers.

Where the OSDS programme uses self-steering axles, Nooteboom sells it with hydraulic steering as the Nooteboom MCOS, whose since-withdrawn English brochure tabulated a fifth-wheel load, rear-axle rating, gross vehicle weight, deadweight and payload against each named type; Nooteboom’s current MCO(S) product page gives technical axle loads and no deadweight, gross weight or payload.

The table, and how to read a payload figure

The payload column needs one warning. The approximately 33,060 kg for the Profi Liner is Krone’s own figure and not a subtraction of ours, and Krone states it against the trailer’s own 39,000 kg permissible total weight — which is in turn the 27,000 kg axle load plus the 12,000 kg fifth-wheel load, that addition ours rather than a Krone line. Either way the figure is a statement about what the trailer’s structure and running gear can take. It is not what may be run on the road. Annex I of Council Directive 96/53/EC limits the trailer’s own axle group: the sum of the axle weights per tri-axle of a trailer or semi-trailer “must not exceed” 24 tonnes where the axles are over 1.3 m and up to 1.4 m apart (point 3.3.2), and Krone prints the Profi Liner’s axle distances as 1,310/1,310 mm against its 27,000 kg axle load — our comparison against the Annex. The combination, tractor unit included, has its own limits in point 2.2 of the same Annex, and Article 4(2), quoted above, lets member states authorise otherwise for national transport. The difference between a trailer rating and a legal combination limit is the substance of gross vehicle and gross combination weight.

Two further layers sit behind every figure here and are not settled by the body type. The kingpin and fifth-wheel interface has to match between tractor and trailer. And a trailer’s braking system carries its own approval. Neither is a detail the body choice decides for you.

CO2 targets: which trailers the EU percentages reach

Unlike the manufacturer figures above, the percentages in this section are set by law. Article 3a(3) of Regulation (EU) 2019/1242, inserted by Regulation (EU) 2024/1610, says: “The CO2 emissions related to the Union fleet of new trailers shall be reduced in accordance with point 4.3 of Annex I.” Point 4.3.1 of that Annex, as replaced by Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1045, sets the targets by reporting period. Its “Trailers” row gives 0 for 2025–2029 and 7.5 per cent for 2030–2034, 2035–2039 and as from 2040; its “Semi-trailers” row gives 0 and then 10 per cent for the same three periods. The European Commission’s climate directorate, DG CLIMA, summarises it as: “starting in 2030, CO2 emissions must be reduced by 10% for new semi-trailers and by 7,5% for new trailers other than semi-trailers.”

The years in that table are reporting periods. Point (3a) of Article 3 of Regulation (EU) 2019/1242, inserted by Regulation (EU) 2024/1610, defines a reporting period as “the period from 1 July of a given year to 30 June of the following year”, and DG CLIMA says the targets “apply to new HDVs registered in the reporting period of a given year”. The columns of point 4.3.1 sit under the heading “Reporting periods of the years”, so on our reading of the definition and that heading, the first reporting period of the 2030–2034 column begins on 1 July 2030.

Each percentage is a reduction against a reference. DG CLIMA describes the revised targets as “a percentage reduction of emissions across all vehicles manufactured by a company during a certain reporting period, compared to the EU average of vehicles registered in a specific reference period”, and among the reference-period years it lists “2025 for coaches, trailers, and medium lorries between 5 and 7,5 tonnes.” Under Article 6 the Commission “shall determine for each manufacturer a specific CO2 emissions target for the preceding reporting period”, and in our plain-words reading of the formula in point 4.1.2 that target uses each sub-group’s point 4.3 reduction target as one of its terms. On our reading, a percentage in the table is therefore a term in a manufacturer’s target, not a limit set for a single trailer.

The trailer sub-groups come from a second Regulation. Annex I point 1.1.3 defines them “for heavy-duty vehicles of category O” by reference to Tables 1, 4 and 6 of Annex I to Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/1362 — Table 1 “with one, two or three axles”, Table 4 “with two or three axles” — whose tables are titled “Vehicle groups for semi-trailers”, “Vehicle groups for drawbar trailers” and “Vehicle groups for centre-axle trailers”. Comparing the code lists of the corrected table with these tables, the “Semi-trailers” row matches Table 1 and the “Trailers” row matches Tables 4 and 6; that pairing is our step, and DG CLIMA’s “new trailers other than semi-trailers” points the same way. Those tables list three body types only: “soft shell box body”, “hard shell box body” and “refrigerated box body”. Matching this page’s curtainsider, box and reefer bodies to those names is our step too.

As published on 5 August 2022, Article 1 of that Regulation excludes, among others, “vehicles with a bodywork other than a box shaped bodywork”, vehicles “with a technically permissible maximum mass lower than 8 000 kg” and vehicles “with more than three axles”. For the tipper, silo, tank, skeletal and low-loader bodies on this page, the tables list no sub-group (our reading of point 1.1.3 and the group tables). Recital 7 of Delegated Regulation (EU) 2026/1282 mentions “the upcoming amendment to Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/1362”; the texts we read do not say what it changes.

What the trailer figures describe is the trailer’s influence on the CO2 emissions and fuel consumption of motor vehicles, determined with the Commission’s simulation tool, which Implementing Regulation (EU) 2022/1362 defines as “an electronic tool, developed by the Commission”. Its first recital says: “More efficient trailers have lower drag force resistance, thus improving the energy efficiency of the towing vehicle.”

The text of Regulation (EU) 2024/1610 published on 6 June 2024 printed the code lists of the “Trailers” and “Semi-trailers” rows of point 4.3.1 interchanged (our comparison with the corrigendum of 29 October 2024, OJ L, 2024/90661); Delegated Regulation (EU) 2025/1045 replaced point 4.3.1 with a table whose “Trailers” and “Semi-trailers” rows carry the corrected code lists, and the labels and percentages of those two rows are the same in both texts.

The lorry, coach and interurban bus rows of the same table are set out on the electric trucks page and are not repeated here.

For a used buyer

Schmitz Cargobull’s 2019 brochure gave its S.CS PAPER X-LIGHT, which it said meets the requirements for the transport of rolls of paper, a chassis with narrow cross-beam spacing and an empty weight from 6,190 kg without additional fittings; the same brochure gave the X-LIGHT range from 4,975 kg, a figure footnoted to the UNIVERSAL X-LIGHT depending on the equipment, so the two “from” figures carry different qualifiers. A Krone Cool Liner’s published tare tells you little until you know what cooling unit is fitted, because the figure excludes it, and a reefer’s insulation category and ATP paperwork are a separate check again, set out in refrigerated transport and temperature records. A skeletal carries only the container sizes it is built for: Krone builds the eL20 for 20 ft containers only, and gives the extendable eLTU6 container locks that are adjusted to the container sizes carried. And on a tipper, Schmitz Cargobull matched the body material to the work: steel to abrasive materials, aluminium to payload.