December 2025 Container Traffic at North American Ports
Analysts’ Forecasts for December 2025 TEU Tallies
On January 9, the National Retail Federation’s Global Port Tracker issued its estimate that the thirteen U.S. ports it monitors would handle 1.99 million TEUs laden with goods from abroad in December. That would represent a year-over-year 6.6% decline. Meanwhile, the Descartes Systems Group estimated that 2,227,316 TEUs arrived at all U.S. ports in December, a 5.9% falloff from the previous December. Descartes further estimates that total container imports through all of 2025 would amount to 28,079,201 TEUs, a negligible 0.4% dip from the previous year.
The December TEU Tallies Ports Are Actually Reporting
Here are the December 2025 TEU trade statistics that ports have posted prior to our publication deadline.
America’s busiest port, the Port of Los Angeles, handled 424,499 loaded inbound TEUs in the final month of 2025. Although that represented a 7.9% fall-off from the preceding year, it was 13.7% higher than the volume of inbound laden TEUs the port discharged in pre-pandemic December 2019. The 108,075 laden TEUs shipped from the port in December were down 2.2% year-over-year and 17.0% below the volume handled in December 2019. Total container traffic through the port in 2025 amounted to 10,239,318 TEUs, up 9.7% from the volumes handled in 2019.
The Port of Long Beach recorded 392,153 inbound loaded TEUs in December, a decline of 5.0% from a year earlier, but 23.1% more than the Southern California port handled on the eve of the COVID pandemic in December 2019. Outbound loads amounted to 102,443 TEUs, up 1.6% year-over-year but down 18.3% from the last month of 2019. Total container traffic through the port in all of 2025, reached an all-time high of 9,881,595 TEUs, up 29.5% from 2019.
Northern California’s Port of Oakland received 74,031 loaded TEUs in December, a 12.8% drop from the preceding December as well as an 8.9% decline from the inbound volume handled in December 2019. Meanwhile, 66,019 laden TEUs were shipped from the Bay Area port, a 10.9% gain from a year earlier but down 11.6% from December 2019. Total container traffic in all of 2025 amounted to 2,253,976 TEUs, down 0.4% from 2024 and 9.9% below the total volume the port handled in 2019.
Oregon’s Port of Portland handled 3,378 inbound TEUs in December, down 26.9% from a year earlier and the fewest the Columbia River port has seen in any December since resuming regular container operations in 2020. Outbound traffic, meanwhile, fell 21.0% from a year earlier to 3,392, also the smallest volume of outbound containers in any December since normal operations resumed in 2020. For the entire year, total container traffic through the port amounted to 86,387 TEUs, 12.7% below the total number of containers handled a year earlier and the fewest of any year since normal container operations resumed at the port in 2020.
Across the border in British Columbia, both Canadian west coast container ports posted strong year-over-year gains in inbound loads in December. At the Port of Vancouver, the 161,886 inbound loaded TEUs represented an 11.7% increase from a year earlier, while the Port of Prince Rupert saw its inbound loaded TEU traffic soar by 48.6% to 30,547 TEUs. Outbound loads in December (71,472 TEUs at Vancouver and 13,017 TEUs at Prince Rupert) were up 0.6% and 60.4%, respectively. Total container traffic in 2025 amounted to 3,778,996 TEUs at Vancouver and 885,797 TEUs at Prince Rupert. Vancouver handled 11.2% more TEUs last year than it had in 2019, but Prince Rupert’s total volume in 2025 was down 26.8% from 2019.
Along the Mid-Atlantic coast, the Port of Virginia recorded 127,602 inbound loaded TEUs in December, a 1.2% year-over-year decline but still up 23.2% from the volume reported in December 2019. Outbound loads of 85,160 TEUs were off by 12.3% from a year earlier but up 8.8% over the last month of 2019. Total container traffic throughout 2025 amounted to 3,239,638 TEUs, a 10.3% gain over 2019.