The National Motor Freight Traffic Association (NMFTA) annually publishes a list of freight class designations, codes, and subclasses for commonly shipped items (https://classit.nmfta.org/). To access this list, you are required to pay a subscription fee. Learn more about freight classes for free on our freight classes pages.

The class determines the cost of the shipping. The lower the class, the lower the cost.

Some items, such as car transmissions, have a specific class no matter how heavy or big they are. This is called a fixed class. Items can be assigned a fixed class if the value and transportability very rarely change.