Load centre is the single most misread number on a forklift specification sheet. A truck advertised as a 2,500 kg machine is a 2,500 kg machine at a stated load centre, and if your pallet puts its weight further forward than that, the truck cannot lift 2,500 kg. Nothing on the sheet warns you.
What the number means
Load centre is the horizontal distance from the front face of the forks to the centre of gravity of the load. It is row 1.6 on a VDI 2198 specification table, and it is the assumption that the capacity figure in row 1.5 is built on.
A forklift is a lever. The load sits in front of the front axle, the counterweight behind it, and the front axle is the pivot. What the truck actually resists is a turning moment – weight multiplied by distance. Move the same weight further from the axle and the moment grows, so the weight the truck can safely carry falls.
The trap: two conventions, often on the same brand
There is no single world standard, and that is where comparisons go wrong.
- European specification sheets usually rate capacity at a 500 mm load centre.
- North American sheets usually rate at 24 inches, which is 600 mm.
Both conventions appear in this database, and not neatly by brand. Toyota’s North American sheets rate at 600 mm. The Yale and Hyster internal-combustion ranges here, published for Europe, rate at 500 mm. Hyster’s reach trucks rate at 600 mm. The same manufacturer uses both, depending on which market the document was written for.
This matters because a 600 mm rating is the harder test. A truck rated at 2,500 kg at 600 mm is carrying that load further out than one rated 2,500 kg at 500 mm. Put those two side by side on headline capacity alone and you have compared nothing.
Every model page here prints the load centre next to the capacity for exactly this reason, and the comparison tables put the two rows together so the mismatch is visible rather than buried.
How to work out the load centre you actually need
For a uniform load on a standard pallet, the load centre is roughly half the depth of the load measured along the forks. A 1,200 mm deep pallet loaded evenly gives about 600 mm. A 1,000 mm deep pallet gives about 500 mm.
Two things break that rule of thumb, and both are common:
- Loads that are not uniform. A pallet with the heavy items stacked at the outer end has its centre of gravity further forward than the geometry suggests.
- Anything handled by an attachment. A clamp, a rotator or a fork extension moves the load forward and adds its own weight in front of the axle. Both reduce capacity, and the reduction is not something you can estimate.
Do not calculate your own derating
There is a tempting piece of arithmetic – multiply the rated capacity by the rated load centre, then divide by your load centre – and it will give you a number. Do not use that number to decide whether a lift is safe.
Real capacity is limited by more than the counterbalance moment: mast strength, carriage and fork rating, hydraulic pressure and tyre load all cap it, and they do not scale linearly. This is why every truck carries a manufacturer capacity plate and, for anything unusual, a load chart. Those are the authority. The figure on a specification sheet, including ours, tells you which trucks are worth getting a chart for.
The same applies to lift height. Many trucks derate above a certain height, which is why our tables carry a separate capacity at maximum height row where the manufacturer publishes one, and show “Not specified” where they do not.
What to do with this before you buy
- Measure the deepest load you actually handle, and where its weight sits.
- Read capacity and load centre together, never capacity alone.
- When two trucks are rated at different load centres, treat the 600 mm figure as the stronger claim.
- Ask the dealer for the capacity plate and, if you use attachments, the derated chart for that exact configuration.