New Shipping Container Financing

What 'New' Actually Means at the Depot

In the container trade, 'new' has two practical categories. A factory-new unit has never entered commercial service. It ships directly from the manufacturer, often CIMC or Singamas facilities in China, and arrives with a clean Certificate of Manufacture. A one-trip unit made a single voyage carrying export cargo (often appliances, machinery, or consumer goods) and is then sold off. One-trips are effectively new: original paint, original floors, original seals. Residual cargo odor is the main variable to check.

For buyers financing through us, condition matters because it affects collateral value and resale. New and one-trip containers hold value better than wind-and-watertight (WWT) or cargo-worthy used units. That better residual value actually helps your financing terms. We can structure longer payback periods on new steel because the underlying asset doesn't depreciate the way a tire or an engine does. A twenty-foot new unit purchased today is still a twenty-foot new unit five years from now, just with weather on it.

• Standard new 20-foot ISO container: roughly 1,165 cubic feet of interior space, 5,080 lbs tare weight, payload capacity around 47,900 lbs.
• New 40-foot standard: 2,350 cubic feet interior, suitable for most storage and rental applications.
• New 40-foot high-cube: 2,694 cubic feet interior with 9-foot-6-inch interior height, popular for workshop and office conversions.
• One-trip availability clusters near major import ports including Long Beach, Savannah, and Newark; pricing typically runs somewhat higher than used but below custom-modified units.

How the Deal Works

You pick your units and lock an allocation with the depot or dealer. We handle the funding side so you aren't burning your operating cash or waiting three weeks for a bank credit committee. Here is the typical sequence.

Step one: application. For deals up to around four hundred thousand dollars, we work on an application-only basis. No full financial disclosure package. We look at business credit, time in business, and a few months of bank statements to confirm cash flow. Step two: approval and rate lock. Most approvals come back within a business day or two. Step three: funds to the seller. We wire directly to the depot, dealer, or private party. You take title. Step four: you start monthly payments and we handle the rest.

Structure options include a standard equipment loan where you own the boxes outright from day one, or an equipment lease where payments run lower and you can buy out at end of term. If you already own containers free and clear, a sale-leaseback arrangement can pull cash out of existing steel while you keep using the units. Funding typically closes inside one to two weeks once documents are signed.

Who Buys New Containers on Financing

The buyers we fund most often for new container purchases fall into a few clear categories.

Portable storage rental companies building or expanding a fleet want new or one-trip units because rental customers notice condition. A dented, patched box with a sticky door is a customer service call. New steel eliminates that problem from the start. Portable storage rental operators often buy in batches of ten to fifty units and benefit from fleet-rate negotiations that we can finance as a single transaction.

Cold-chain and food-distribution operators buying new refrigerated containers need factory-new refrigeration units with full manufacturer warranty. Mixing used-reefer risk into a food-safety operation creates compliance exposure; new units solve that. Cold storage businesses often layer new reefer purchases alongside ambient container purchases in the same facility expansion.

Construction contractors ordering new containers for on-site office and secure tool storage often want the clean appearance that comes with new steel on a high-visibility jobsite. General contractors financing jobsite containers through us avoid depleting the bonding capacity they need for the project itself.