Preliminary January 2025 TEUs
The Pacific Merchant Shipping Association’s West Coast Trade Report is a monthly publication that monitors container traffic through 23 North American seaports, twenty in the United States and three in Canada. The TEU tallies cited here are the actual statistics released by the ports themselves, not a priori estimates based on proprietary models or algorithms. However, as the tardy numbers become available, the Facts & Figures tables on the PMSA website will be promptly updated.
What others are saying about January’s TEU Traffic
Although no ports had reported January container numbers by the time of its February 7 press release, the National Retail Federation announced that its Global Port Tracker (GPT) expected 2.11 million inbound loaded TEUs would arrive in 2025’s first month at the thirteen U.S. ports GPT monitors. That would represent a 7.8% year-over-year gain. Descartes Systems Group, meanwhile, estimated in a February 10 press release that all U.S. ports would handle 2,487,470 imported loads, reportedly a 9.4% increase over January 2024.
What the ports themselves are saying about January
The Port of Long Beach began the year at a torrid pace. Inbound loaded TEUs (471,649) were the second most in the port’s history, exceeded only by the 487,563 laden TEUs discharged in September 2024. On a year-over-year basis, inbound loads at the Southern California port were up 45.0% from a year earlier and up 45.6% from the first month of pre-pandemic 2019. Outbound loads (98,655 TEUs) were up 14.0% from a year earlier, but down 15.9% from January 2019. Total loads and empties handled at the port in January (962,733 TEUs) were 44.9% above the volume handled in January 2019.
The nation’s second busiest container port in January was the Port of Los Angeles, which started the year by handling 28,488 fewer TEUs than the neighboring Port of Long Beach. Inbound loads at the Port of LA in January (483,831 TEUs) were up 9.5% from a year earlier and up 12.5% from January 2019. Outbound loads (113,271 TEUs) were off year-over-year by 10.5% and were down by 21.9% from the same month in 2019. Overall, the San Pedro Bay maritime gateway processed 924,245 loaded and empty TEUs in January, an 8.0% gain over the same month in 2023 and an 8.4% increase over January 2019.
Port Houston handled 170,125 inbound loaded TEUs in January, a 10.1% year-over-year gain but more impressively a 78.5% increase over January 2019. Outbound loads (122,931 TEUs) meanwhile slipped by 1.0% from a year earlier but remained up 39.8% from the same month six years ago. Total container traffic YTD through the Texas port (356,407 TEUs) represented a remarkable 65.8% increase over 2019.
Up in America’s upper lefthand corner, the Northwest Seaport Alliance Ports of Tacoma and Seattle enjoyed a substantial boost in container traffic over a comparatively sluggish January of 2024. Still, the ports continue to operate well below the volume they recorded in January 2019. Import loads this January (108,343 TEUs) were up 34.7% from a year earlier but remained down 15.8% from the same month six years earlier. Export loads (48,312 TEUs) edged up 4.5% year-over-year but were 33.7% below January 2019. Total container movements through the two ports (264,869 TEUs) were down 18.8% from the first month of 2019.
Canada’s largest port, the Port of Vancouver, enjoyed boosts in container traffic in January that brought the port in British Columbia closer to its pre-pandemic levels. Inbound loads (170,266 TEUs) jumped by 16.9% from the preceding January and just 0.1% below its January 2019 pace. Outbound loads (69,186 TEUs), while a 15.4% gain from a year earlier, still lagged January 2019’s volume by 24.3%. Overall, all container traffic of loads and empties in January (329,754 TEUs) remained 5.2% below the volume reported in January 2019 despite a 25.9% bump over January 2023.
Even further northwest, 39,198 laden TEUs were discharged at the Port of Prince Rupert in January, a 9.5% gain over the previous January but nonetheless down 28.1% from the number of inbound loads handled in January 2019. Outbound loads (15,216 TEUs), while up 33.0% year-over-year, were down 11.3% from January 2019. Total container traffic through the port this January (74,671 TEUs) was 26.0% below its volume in pre-COVID January 2019.
Back on the wintery Atlantic Coast, 378,168 laden TEUs were discharged in January at the Port of New York/New Jersey (PNYNJ), a 10.3% gain over the same month a year earlier and an increase of 15.5% over January 2019. Outbound loads (98,706 TEUs) were down by 5.7% from the previous January and off by 11.7% from the first month of 2019. Total container moves through the very busiest of the East Coast ports amounted to 720,283 TEUs, a 15.7% increase over the same month in 2019.
The mid-Atlantic Coast Port of Virginia handled 121,770 inbound loaded TEUs in January, a 5.8% drop from a year earlier but still up 10.0% over January 2019. Outbound loads (83,950 TEUs) were down by 11.0% from the preceding January but remained 7.7% above the volume recorded in January 2019. Total container traffic through the port in January amounted to 268,617 TEUs, 11.9% above the 240,111 TEUs the port had handled six years earlier.
Oakland, Charleston, and PNYNJ have yet to post January TEU tallies.
The nation’s fourth busiest container port, the Port of Savannah, reported 206,405 inbound loaded TEUs in January, down 5.8% year-over-year and off by 1.5% from the 209,583 inbound loaded TEUs handled in the first month of 2019. Outbound loads (96,853 TEUs) were down 7.5% from a year earlier as well as down 22.1% from January 2019. Total container traffic through the Georgia port in this year’s first month (418,222 TEUs) was 2.8% below the volume handled in January 2019.