General freight (FAK)

Not every load has a neat commodity name. A large share of the freight posted on the Cargado marketplace is general cargo: postings labeled FAK, general cargo and legal dims, carga general, general merchandise, or dry goods palletized. It is the everyday circulatory volume of cross-border trade — mixed pallets, consolidated products, distribution freight — and it moves on every major corridor in the network.

What FAK actually means

FAK — freight all kinds — signals that a load is mixed or unspecified general merchandise rather than a single named commodity, priced as ordinary dry freight rather than by its specific contents. Its Spanish-language cousin carga general does the same work, and the recurring phrase legal dims in the data adds the promise that everything fits within standard legal dimensions and weight. What FAK is not: a license to hide what is on the trailer. Carriers still need to know the freight is non-hazardous, how it is packaged, and what it weighs.

Where general freight concentrates

General cargo is everywhere, but it clusters in the biggest markets: Monterrey and Guadalajara lead FAK and general-cargo postings in Mexico, with Laredo and Houston carrying the pattern on the U.S. side and Toronto showing the same palletized dry goods profile in Canada. That distribution tracks the category's nature — wherever total volume is high, general freight is high.

Posting general freight well

• Dry van, palletized. General freight is the archetypal dry van load — palletized, non-hazardous, within legal dimensions.
• Disclose what you can. A blank or vague commodity field measurably suppresses bids. Even general merchandise, palletized, non-haz, 40,000 lbs beats an empty field.
• Post the true origin. General freight posted from a border stop instead of the real Mexican origin confuses carriers about the actual work involved.
• Price to the band. Because general freight is the most liquid category, market-rate visibility is strongest here — postings inside the band get covered fastest.

General freight is also the easiest place to start on the marketplace: the capacity pool is deepest and the requirements are simplest. See the Mexico 101 guides for crossing basics, and the lanes pages to find carrier depth on your corridors.