A loading dock is a space in a building or facility where trucks or railroads are loaded and unloaded. They are commonly found in commercial and industrial buildings, and warehouses particularly.

The docks can be exterior, flush with the building or completely inserted into it. They are part of the service or infrastructure of a facility typically providing direct access to waiting areas, warehouses and freight elevators.

Its main function is to ensure that the platform of the box of a truck or wagon is level with the pavement of a warehouse or factory in order to carry out the loading/unloading operations of merchandise, either to carry out the operation manually or by means of pallet trucks or forklifts that access the interior of the vehicle box. There are loading docks in factories or highly automated logistics centers where the loading/unloading operations of pallets on trucks are carried out by means of autonomous conveyors not operated by any person.[1]​.

To facilitate the handling of materials, loading docks can be equipped with the following elements:.

Warehouses that handle palletized cargo use a dock leveler so that items can be easily loaded and unloaded using mechanical equipment (for example, a forklift). The most common dock height is 120-130 cm, although heights up to 140 cm also occur. When a truck rests on the dock, the bumpers on the dock and the bumpers on the trailer come into contact and create a gap. Also, the warehouse floor and trailer deck may not be aligned horizontally. A dock leveler fills the gap between a truck and a warehouse to accommodate a forklift.

Where it is not common practice to install permanent concrete docks or for temporary situations, it is common to use a mobile version of the dock often called a ramp.