How to calculate towing capacity for your own truck and trailer
The calculator is set on the 2026 Silverado 1500 and a 7,000 lb trailer. Pick your configuration, enter your trailer, people and cargo, and it runs the six steps below at once.
2026 Chevrolet Silverado 1500: can it tow 7,000 lb?
Within the ratings checked
Rating for this configuration: 13,300 lb, GCWR 19,000 lb. 2026 Chevrolet Trailering Guide, p. 26.
| Trailer vs trailer weight rating | 7,000 lb of 13,300 lb ✓ |
| Tongue weight share | 12.0% (10 to 15%) ✓ |
| Load on the vehicle vs payload | enter your door-label payload |
| Vehicle weight vs GVWR | enter GVWR and curb weight |
| Truck plus trailer vs GCWR (curb implied by the rating) | 12,975 lb of 19,000 lb ✓ |
| Heaviest trailer with this load (set by GCWR) | 13,025 lb |
No curb weight in the Chevrolet guide: the GCWR test uses GCWR minus the rating minus the 300 lb of people the rating assumes.
Compiled by Radif Partners · Sources and method · makers’ towing documents read October 20 to 21, 2026
Calculating your real towing capacity takes six steps. Find the row of the maker's towing table that matches your engine, drive, cab and package. Weigh the trailer loaded as you travel, not dry. Check that the tongue is 10 to 15% of it. Add people, cargo, hitch hardware and tongue, and keep the total within the payload on your door label. Keep the loaded truck within its GVWR. Finally, keep truck plus trailer within the GCWR of your row. In the example worked below, a 2026 Silverado 1500 rated 13,300 lb pulls a 7,000 lb trailer with 600 lb of people and 200 lb of cargo: the trailer uses barely half of the rating, yet the load on the truck reaches 1,715 lb against a 1,750 lb label, and the heaviest trailer this load allows is 7,291 lb, set by the payload.
Step 1: find your row, not your model
A towing rating belongs to a configuration. Chevrolet's trailering guide prints 50 rows for the 2026 Silverado 1500, from 8,700 lb to 13,300 lb, split by engine, drive, cab, bed and package. Match yours with the window sticker or build sheet; the engine and the package codes are the ones that move the figure most. For this example we take the top row: the Duramax 3.0L I-6, 4x2 Double Cab, Max Trailering Package and 20" Wheels, rated 13,300 lb with a GCWR of 19,000 lb (p. 26). The vehicle pages, such as the Silverado 1500 page, list every row.
Step 2: weigh the trailer as you will tow it
The dry weight on a trailer brochure leaves out water, propane, batteries, food and gear. Use the loaded weight: a scale ticket is best, and the trailer's own GVWR on its label is the safe upper bound if you cannot weigh it. Our example trailer weighs 7,000 lb loaded. The travel trailer weight page shows how far dry and loaded weights drift apart.
From dry weight to loaded weight
Loaded camper weight to compare with your rating
6,567 lb
| Dry weight | 5,600 lb |
| Water (8.34 lb a gallon) | 167 lb |
| Gear and supplies | 800 lb |
| Trailer GVWR, the most it may weigh | 7,000 lb |
Step 3: check the tongue share
Chevrolet asks for 10 to 15% of the loaded trailer on the hitch. Our example tongue of 840 lb is 12% of the trailer, inside the range. Below the range the trailer is prone to sway; above it the rear of the truck is overloaded. The tongue weight is also the figure that carries into the next two steps.
Step 4: add up the payload
People 600 lb, cargo 200 lb, hitch hardware 75 lb and the tongue 840 lb make 1,715 lb on the truck. The Silverado guide prints no payload, so the figure comes from the placard on the door pillar, which states the combined weight of occupants and cargo for your own truck (49 CFR 571.110); we use 1,750 lb as an example. Result: within, with 35 lb to spare.
Steps 5 and 6: GVWR and GCWR
The GVWR test adds the same load to the curb weight and compares it with the GVWR on the certification label (49 CFR 567.4). It needs a real curb weight, which only a scale gives for your truck, so the example leaves it open. The GCWR test can be run from the guide alone. Chevrolet derives each rating as the GCWR minus the curb weight, counting 150 lb each for a driver and a front passenger (p. 7). Read backwards, our row implies a curb weight of 5,400 lb. Truck, people, cargo, hitch and trailer then weigh 13,275 lb against the 19,000 lb GCWR: within, with 5,725 lb to spare.
| Check | Used | Limit | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trailer vs rating | 7,000 lb | 13,300 lb | within |
| Load on the truck vs payload | 1,715 lb | 1,750 lb | within |
| Truck and trailer vs GCWR | 13,275 lb | 19,000 lb | within |
Reading the result
The example is within every limit, but with less than a 10% margin on at least one. The heaviest trailer this truck could pull with the same people, cargo and tongue share is 7,291 lb, set by the payload, against a headline of 13,300 lb. That is the number to compare with trailers you are shopping for. Two habits keep it honest: recalculate when the load in the cab changes, since a fifth passenger or a full bed moves the answer, and keep a margin rather than towing at exactly the limit. Ford adds a reduction of 2% of GVW and GCW per 1,000 ft of elevation for its own vehicles (Ford guide, p. 9). The checker and the method page use the same arithmetic.