National Motor Freight Classification (NMFC) is a freight classification system created by the National Motor Freight Traffic Association (NMFTA) and used for interstate, intrastate, and foreign commerce shipping of LTL cargo. NMFC freight codes provide standardized freight classes to determine the ease of transport of many of the huge variety of different commodities being shipped together in LTL shipments every year.
Freight class 50 is the least expensive because it refers to the freight that is easiest to transport for the carriers.
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.