One of the concerns that arise during navigation in ice-covered waters is the magnitude of ice loads encountered by ships. However, the accurate estimation of ice loads still remains as a rather difficult task in the design of icebreaking vessels. This paper focuses on the development of simple ice load prediction formulas for the icebreaking cargo vessels. The maximum ice loads are expected from unbroken ice sheet and these loads are most likely to be concentrated at the bow area. Published ice load data for icebreaking vessels, from the model tests and also from full-scale sea trials, are collected and then several ice load prediction formulas are compared with these data. Finally, based on collected data, a semi-empirical ice load prediction formula is recommended for the icebreaking cargo vessels.