RV weights: dry weight, GVWR, hitch weight and cargo capacity

Dry weight, which makers also call unloaded vehicle weight or UVW, is the trailer as it leaves the factory: no water, no food, no gear. Brochures print it for the base floorplan, and most leave out the battery, the propane and every option the dealer ordered, so the unit on the lot nearly always weighs more than the brochure says.

The federal label on the door is stricter. Under FMVSS 110, the UVW used for the yellow sticker has to reflect the trailer as configured for delivery, with full propane tanks included. When the brochure and the sticker disagree, the sticker is the one that describes the trailer you are buying.

Gross vehicle weight rating is the maker’s ceiling for the fully loaded trailer or motorhome. On a trailer, the axle ratings plus the recommended tongue weight have to add up to at least the GVWR, which is why GVWR rather than dry weight is the honest number to hold against a tow rating. A trailer can legally be loaded right up to it, and full-timers routinely are.

Every RV trailer sold in the US carries a black-on-yellow label inside the entry door headed “Recreation vehicle trailer cargo carrying capacity”. Motorhomes carry the same label as “occupant and cargo carrying capacity”, because passengers ride inside. The figure is GVWR minus the as-delivered UVW, and the regulation is explicit that water in the tanks is cargo: a full fresh tank comes out of it at 8.3 lb a gallon.

Only 94 of the 152 towables in this catalog have a cargo capacity printed on the maker’s spec page. For the rest, the margin below is the closest published stand-in, and the sticker on the actual unit settles it.

Across the 134 current towables whose makers publish both figures, the median gap between brochure dry weight and GVWR is 1,743 lb. The tightest is the Airstream Bambi 16RB at 350 lb; the roomiest is the Grand Design Solitude 310GK at 5,800 lb. 18 of them leave less than 1,000 lb, which a full fresh tank, a week of food, two batteries and camp chairs will use up.

A conventional trailer should put roughly 10 to 15 percent of its loaded weight on the hitch ball; much less and it sways, much more and the truck’s rear axle squats. Fifth wheels put a larger share on the pin, which is part of why they tow so steadily.

Maker-published dry hitch weights in this catalog run from 6.5% to 17.9% of dry weight, with a median of 11.8% across 95 bumper-pull trailers, against 19% for 32 fifth wheels. Those are empty figures. Loading the front pass-through or filling a forward fresh tank raises them, so budget for the loaded number.

Your truck has its own load label, on the driver’s door pillar, under the same federal standard: “the combined weight of occupants and cargo should never exceed” a stated number. Everything riding in or on the truck counts against it: you, your passengers, whatever is in the bed, the weight-distribution hitch itself, and the trailer’s loaded tongue weight.

Run the arithmetic for a half-ton with a 1,500 lb payload: two adults at 350 lb, 150 lb in the bed, a 100 lb hitch head, and a trailer putting 900 lb on the ball leave nothing. The same truck may be rated to tow 9,000 lb. The tow-rating filter on the catalog page checks GVWR; check payload by hand.

Fresh water weighs 8.3 lb a gallon. A 50-gallon fresh tank full is over 400 lb of cargo, usually sitting near the axles but sometimes ahead of them, where it adds hitch weight too. Gray and black tanks count the same way when they are full. Most owners travel with the fresh tank part-full and the waste tanks empty, and fill up at the campground.

Median fresh tank by type in this catalog: Class B 26 gal, Class C 43 gal, travel trailer 45 gal, teardrop 19 gal, fifth wheel 75 gal, Class A 80 gal, truck camper 39 gal, toy hauler 106 gal.

A certified truck-stop scale weighs each axle separately: weigh the truck alone, then the truck and trailer loaded for a trip, and the difference tells you the trailer’s real weight and how much of it is on the hitch. It takes ten minutes and replaces every brochure figure on this site with the number that matters.