Shipping Container Prices in Tacoma

Tacoma is one of the best places in the country to buy a used shipping container. The Port of Tacoma moves more container volume than almost any other US port, so used units are always in supply locally and they do not have to be trucked in from another state. That keeps the price of the box itself low. What usually decides your final number is not the container, it is the delivery and the condition grade.

The ranges below are what 20ft and 40ft containers actually sell for in the Tacoma and Seattle market, not national averages. Every row assumes a standard 8ft wide container with one set of cargo doors at the rear.

Refrigerated containers, 10ft and 53ft units, and anything with doors cut into the sides are priced individually because the supply changes week to week. Ask for a current price on the specific size you need.

Why a Tacoma container is cheaper than an inland one

A shipping container is cheap to make and expensive to move. Anywhere more than a few hundred miles from a port, most of the sticker price is inbound freight. Denver, Salt Lake City and Phoenix buyers routinely pay several hundred dollars more for the same grade of box, because it had to be hauled there first.

In Tacoma that cost largely disappears. Used containers come off the port, get inspected at a local depot, and go straight onto a tilt-bed. It is also why the condition grades are so much better here: the supply is large enough that you can be picky, and a cargo worthy 20ft is a normal purchase rather than a special order.

An advertised container price is the box sitting in a yard. Getting it to your site adds three more things, and they are the part most quotes skim over:

1. Delivery. A tilt-bed truck with an operator, priced by distance and access. See the delivery section below.
2. Sales tax. Washington state sales tax applies to the container and to the delivery. If you are a business buying for resale or for a qualifying agricultural use, ask about an exemption certificate before you buy.
3. Site preparation. The truck can only drop the container on firm, level ground. On soft ground, a slope, or the tideflats soil around the port, that means a compacted gravel pad or timber cribbing, and that is your cost, not ours.

If your number has to be a single all-in figure, tell us the delivery ZIP code and what the ground is like. We would rather quote one honest total than have you discover the rest on delivery day.

Nearly every price gap in the table above is a condition gap. The same 20ft box can sell for $1,200 or $4,300 depending on which of these four grades it is in.

For anything that matters, buy wind and water tight or better. In the Pacific Northwest it rains from October through May, and an as-is container will find every weak point in its first winter. The difference between as-is and WWT is usually $400 to $700, which is less than one round of repairs.

Only pay for cargo worthy if you actually need the certification, for example exporting goods. If the container is going to sit on a lot in Fife for five years, the CSC certificate buys you nothing.

Read more about the grades on the cargo worthy shipping containers page, and about height on the high cube containers page.

Once you have picked a size and a grade, these are the six things that move the number. Worth knowing before you compare two quotes, because a cheap quote and an expensive quote are often not the same container.

1. Height. A high cube is 12 inches taller and usually $200 to $500 more than the same size in standard height.
2. Doors. A second set of cargo doors at the front, or a man door, adds real fabrication time. That is the double door container premium.
3. Width. Anything wider than the standard 8ft is a modification, not a purchase. See the 12ft wide container we built as an example of what that involves.
4. Refrigeration. A reefer carries a working compressor and a power requirement, so it costs several times a dry container. See refrigerated containers.
5. Delivery distance and access. A yard in Tacoma is a short haul. Camano Island is not. A tight residential street with a low branch costs more than a loading dock in Fife.
6. Modifications. Roll up doors, windows, insulation, vents, lighting and tunnels are quoted per job. Browse container modifications to see the range.

Renting is the right answer for a shorter job: a few months of construction storage, an overflow season, a temporary site office. It is the wrong answer for anything you plan to keep, because rent is charged by the month and the total climbs quickly.

As a rule of thumb, if you need a 20ft container for more than about a year, renting will cost you more than buying a used one and you end up with nothing at the end of it. Buying also lets you sell the container when you are finished, and used container values hold up well in Tacoma because the local demand never really stops.

Rental terms depend on the minimum period, the delivery distance and whether we collect it at the end, so we quote them per job rather than publishing a monthly figure that would be wrong for half the people reading it.

Delivery is quoted per address. There is no honest flat rate, because the same 20ft container can be a ten minute drop or an hour of careful positioning. What we need to know is the distance from the yard, the container length, and what the truck has to get through to reach the spot.

Local Tacoma and Fife delivery is usually a few hundred dollars. Seattle and the Eastside add distance and, more importantly, difficulty: older residential streets with mature tree canopy, narrow driveways, parked cars and hills. A 40ft container on a slope is a different job from a 40ft container on a flat industrial pad.

Two practical things that change the price, both of which you can control:

1. Approach room. A tilt-bed needs a straight run of roughly 60 to 75 feet to slide a 20ft container off. A 40ft needs more. If a fence, a gate or a parked car is in that run, the driver cannot complete the drop.
2. Ground. Firm and level. The tideflats and former wetland around the port are soft when saturated, and a loaded container on soft ground will settle and rack out of square. A compacted gravel pad is cheap insurance.

Overhead clearance matters too. Check for power lines, branches and low carport roofs before you book, not when the truck is already outside.

Buying a container is not complicated, but the two numbers that decide whether you are getting a fair price are the grade and the delivery. Both are things we would rather explain on the phone in two minutes than have you guess at. We stock containers from a small 8ft storage box up to a 53ft unit, and we build tool storage and storage containers to order at the Tacoma yard.

If you would rather start from a size than a price, the standard size containers page has the dimensions, and the pallet wide containers page covers the wider option for forklift loading.