GMA Pallet Standard: The 48×40 Gold Standard of North America

A GMA pallet is a stringer-type wooden pallet measuring 48 x 40 inches, or 1219 x 1016 mm, the shared standard of the North American consumer goods industry. It has 3 notched stringers, 7 top deck boards and 5 bottom deck boards, stands about 4.75 inches high, and this size is one of the 6 pallet sizes recognised by ISO 6780.

Vietnamese goods going to the US and Canada are almost always asked about GMA pallets, because warehouses, racking, forklifts and automated lines there are designed around the 48 x 40 inch size. This article goes in turn through the origin of the standard, construction, load by method of support, how pallets are graded in North America, the ISPM 15 quarantine rule and the points we usually ask customers to check before packing goods.

What is a GMA pallet and why did it become the common standard in North America?

GMA stands for Grocery Manufacturers Association, the US trade body of businesses that agreed to share the 48 x 40 inch pallet in the consumer goods industry. When manufacturers, distributors and supermarket chains all use one size, pallets travel from factory to retail shelf without being changed, and the whole warehouse system is built around that size. For more background, see ISO standards for export pallets.

According to the pallet overview on Wikipedia, citing industry figures from 2004, GMA pallets made up about 30% of newly made wooden pallets in the US. In 2020 GMA was renamed the Consumer Brands Association, but the name “GMA pallet” is still kept in trading and on purchase orders.

What parts make up a GMA pallet?

A GMA pallet consists of 3 stringers 48 inches long laid lengthwise, with 7 top deck boards and 5 bottom deck boards 40 inches long nailed across the stringers. The table below follows the 48 x 40 inch stringer pallet design in the sample set of the Pallet Design System (PDS) software, a wooden pallet analysis tool developed by the US National Wooden Pallet and Container Association (NWPCA). Workshops keep this layout and change the board thickness, wood species and nail type according to load requirements.

Each stringer has 2 notches about 9 inches (229 mm) long and 1-1/4 inches (32 mm) deep, starting 6 inches (152 mm) from the end of the stringer. The three inner boards of the bottom deck are gathered into the space between the two notches so they do not block the path of the forks. In the design above, with mixed eastern US hardwood, the pallet weighs 59 lb (about 27 kg) when freshly built from green wood and 37 lb (about 17 kg) once the wood dries to 12% moisture. Other wood and thicker boards give different weights, so use this figure as an illustration and not as a standard weight.

The GMA pallet is called a partial 4-way entry pallet. The forks of a forklift can enter from all 4 sides; at the 48 inch side the forks pass through the notches. A hand pallet truck can enter only from the two 40 inch sides, because at the 48 inch side the bottom deck boards block the place where the wheels lower. Warehouses using many hand pallet trucks should stack goods with the 40 inch side facing the aisle, and tell the receiving party about this if the goods go straight into a retail warehouse.

How much load can a GMA pallet carry?

The load of a GMA pallet depends on how the pallet is supported, so there is no single figure. In the same PDS design above, a pallet lying on the floor one tier high carries a safe load of 4,713 lb (about 2,138 kg), while on a rack it carries only 1,710 lb (about 776 kg) if the rack supports it lengthwise over a 44 inch span, and 1,595 lb (about 723 kg) if supported across its width over a 36 inch span.

When stacked 4 tiers high on the floor, each pallet in this design is rated at a safe load of 1,813 lb (about 822 kg). The gap of nearly three times between floor and rack is where many orders are miscalculated: customers read the figure of 2,500 to 4,600 lb that is often advertised, then put heavy goods on a rack, when that figure is usually the load on the floor.

How are pallets graded in North America?

Used pallets in North America are divided into two main grades: Grade 1 (also called Grade A, #1), almost original with little or no repair, and Grade 2 (Grade B, #2), repaired, possibly with reinforcing stringers or mismatched boards. When Americans say “GMA grade pallet”, they usually mean a Grade A 48 x 40 inch pallet.

Besides these two grades there are newly made pallets in the GMA layout, used for export goods or warehouses that need uniform pallets, and damaged pallets (called cores) sold to recyclers to take wood for repairing other pallets. Goods going from Vietnam to the US usually use new pallets, because the pallet travels with the shipment and the exporter is responsible for its size, load and quarantine.

Besides 48 x 40 inches, what other pallet sizes does North America use?

North America uses about ten more pallet sizes by industry, but 48 x 40 inches remains the default size for consumer goods. The tool below describes the 5 sizes most often seen after GMA; click each size to see which industry uses it.

According to a summary on Wikipedia, beyond the 5 sizes above there are less common sizes tied to particular product groups:

• 48 x 42 inches (1219 x 1067 mm): chemicals, beverages.
• 48 x 45 inches (1219 x 1143 mm): automotive, spare parts.
• 44 x 44 inches (1118 x 1118 mm): drums, chemicals.
• 48 x 36 inches (1219 x 914 mm): beverages, roofing sheets, packaging paper.
• 48 x 20 inches (1219 x 508 mm): retail goods.

One error we have seen in some Vietnamese documents is calling the 42 x 42 inch pallet (1067 x 1067 mm) the GMA standard. That square size is widely used for telecommunications and paint; a GMA pallet is always 48 x 40 inches.

Do pallets exported to the US have to be treated under ISPM 15?

Raw wooden pallets exported to the US and Canada must be treated and stamped under ISPM 15, while plastic and metal pallets and pallets made of engineered wood (plywood, particle board, fibreboard) are exempt. ISPM 15 is the quarantine standard for wood packaging issued by the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) to stop pests travelling with wood. This part relates to buying plastic pallets for export, which has its own analysis.

For heat treatment, the wood core must reach at least 56 °C continuously for at least 30 minutes. The pallet is then stamped with the IPPC mark containing the country code, treatment facility code and the HT symbol, on at least two opposite sides. A missing mark, a faded mark or a wrong code can each cause the shipment to be held at the destination port for re-treatment or returned. To compare sizes and loads, see ICD export pallet models.

What should you check when choosing pallets for goods going to the US?

Before packing, check three things: whether the pallet is exactly the 48 x 40 inches the receiving warehouse requires, how many pallets the container holds, and whether the pallet meets quarantine rules. These three decide whether the goods go straight onto racking or have to be unloaded and re-palletised in the US, an extra cost that the exporter usually bears.

For containers, the interior of a common 40 ft container is about 12.03 x 2.35 m. By our calculation, two rows of GMA pallets with the 48 inch side along the container fit 18 pallets per layer, and the remaining space of a little over 1 m at the end can take 1 more pallet turned sideways if the container interior is long enough. You should therefore recalculate using the container dimensions given by the shipping line rather than rounded figures from general documents.

The GMA size also appears in the set of 6 flat pallet sizes of ISO 6780:2003. The table below helps with cross-checking when an order goes to both the US and Europe or Asia:

Goods going to the US can use wooden pallets treated under ISPM 15 or plastic pallets to skip the treatment and stamping step. The 1200 x 1000 mm pallet common in Vietnam is shorter than the GMA standard by 19 mm in length and 16 mm in width; a small difference, but automated warehouses and some retail chains still require exactly 48 x 40 inches, so ask the importer before choosing.

When sending a pallet quotation request for a shipment to North America, having the following information ready helps the supplier advise the right model from the start:

• The size the receiving party requires (48 x 40 inches or whether 1200 x 1000 mm is accepted).
• Weight of goods per pallet and how the receiving party stores them: on the floor, stacked or on racking.
• The type of forklift the receiving party uses, especially whether hand pallet trucks are used.
• Preferred material: ISPM 15 treated wood or plastic.
• Number of pallets and the expected container type.