San Jose is the largest city in the South Bay. It is not one pallet market but five or more, and where a load sits inside the city decides how it is handled.
San Jose's industrial land does not form one block. North San Jose and Alviso lie at the top of the valley by the bay. Oakland Road and Berryessa run east toward the hills. The Monterey Road and Senter Road corridor cuts through the south-central city. Edenvale sits at the US-101 and SR-85 interchange in the south. Coyote Valley is the farmland between the city and Morgan Hill.
| District | ZIPs | Mostly |
|---|---|---|
| North San Jose | 95134, 95131, 95002 | R&D, network equipment, data centers |
| Alviso | 95002 | Waste and recycling yards, data-center land |
| Edenvale | 95111, 95123, 95136 | Advanced manufacturing, warehousing |
| Monterey corridor | 95111, 95112, 95122, 95136 | Contractors, fabricators, food wholesale |
| Oakland Road | 95112, 95131, 95133 | Small manufacturers, business parks, recyclers |
San Jose International Airport sits about three miles northwest of downtown, near the junction of US-101, I-880 and SR-87, and is reached from I-880 and US-101 via SR-87. Diridon station is the regional rail hub for Caltrain, ACE and Amtrak. The Union Pacific line, which also carries Amtrak's Coast Starlight, runs through Edenvale in the south, where Monterey Road is also a main thoroughfare.
A truck leaving a dock in North San Jose for one in Edenvale crosses the whole city on US-101.
Companies headquartered in the city include Cisco, eBay, Adobe, PayPal, NetApp, Cadence and Zoom. The pallets come mostly from the buildings that serve them: data halls, labs, R&D floors and the contractors that fit them out.
San Jose also has advanced manufacturing, food wholesale, contractors and fabrication, and medical devices. Their pallets differ by trade; see the industries hub.
A pile of empties on a leased floor is rent. Use the floor calculator with your own count and lease rate, and read recycling in San Jose for the recycling side.
Coyote Valley is the farm and open-space gap between San Jose and Morgan Hill. North Coyote Valley belongs to San Jose and South Coyote Valley to Morgan Hill, with Bailey Avenue between them, and San Jose rezoned the northern valley to agriculture and open space in 2021. Its pallets belong to nurseries and farms: a few dozen in a barn, and a peak at harvest.
The Monterey Road and Senter Road corridor is where San Jose's smaller businesses keep their docks, on small parcels along the roads rather than on a campus. Its pallets are few per site and many across the corridor.
| Business | Pallet pattern |
|---|---|
| Contractors and fabricators | Steel and material arrives on skids and crates; odd sizes pile up |
| Food wholesalers | Weekly 48x40 flow; some broken; need clean stock for outbound |
| Auto services and parts | Occasional pallets; 48x45 from parts suppliers |
| Small warehouses and yards | Mixed piles building for months |
Thirty pallets is an ordinary pile here, and a mixed one is the rule. A small dock cannot hold many for long, and many businesses on the corridor have no forklift, so say when access is ground level with no machine.
In the northeast of the city, between two rail lines, small manufacturers, service yards and business parks sit together. Piles are small, mostly standard 48x40s, and often on a dock several tenants share.
On a business-park dock the landlord owns the dock, the tenant owns the pallets and neither cleans the corner, so say the dock is shared and which stacks are yours.
Many; the industrial ZIPs fall into districts. Name your ZIP in a request.
The published figures do not rank them. North San Jose is larger by land.
Sources, last reviewed 12 November 2026