Preliminary April 2025 TEUs

The Pacific Merchant Shipping Association’s West Coast Trade Report is a monthly publication that monitors container traffic through 25 North American seaports, twenty in the United States, two in Mexico, 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 April’s TEU Traffic

On May 9, before any major port had released TEU tallies for April, two major container trade monitors released their projections for container import traffic for that month. The National Retail Federation’s Global Port Tracker (NRF/GPT) projected that 2.2 million TEUs laden with goods from abroad would arrive in April at the thirteen U.S. mainland ports surveyed by NRF/GPT. That would represent a year-over-year increase of 9.1%. The GPT outlook for the next five months is uniformly negative. Meanwhile, an estimate from the Descartes Systems Group pegs April inbound volumes at all U.S. ports at exactly 2,410,371 TEUs, a 9.1% increase over a year earlier and a 25.6% gain over April 2019.

What the ports themselves are saying about April

The Port of Long Beach handled 419,828 inbound laden TEUs in April, a 15.1% bump from a year earlier and a 32.1% increase over April 2019. Outbound loads (93,842 TEUs), however, slipped by 4.5% from the previous April and were 24.2% below the volume in April 2019. Total container traffic YTD through the San Pedro Bay port (3,403,069 TEUs) exceeded the total volume during the first four months of re-pandemic 2019 by 39.8%.

Meanwhile, the neighboring Port of Los Angeles discharged 439,230 inbound loaded TEUs in April, a 5.3% year-over-year gain and a 13.6% increase from the volume recorded in April 2019. Outbound loads (128,394 TEUs) slipped by 3.5% from a year earlier and were 17.4% below the April 2019 level. Total container traffic YTD (3,346,853 TEUs) were up 13.6% over the same months in 2019.  

The Port of Oakland received 78,965 laden TEUs in April, a 4.8% gain over a year earlier but still down 2.2% from April 2019. Outbound loads (64,723 TEUs) were off by 4.2% year-over-year as well as down 18.4% below the volume shipped in April 2019. Total container traffic through the Northern California gateway so far this year amounted to 787,028 TEUs, an increase of 4.3% from the first four months of 2024 but down 5.0% from the same period in 2019.

Checking in on the Columbia River Port of Portland in Oregon, the 3,891 inbound TEUs that arrived in April were up 545 TEUs (+16.3%) over the previous April but were otherwise the lowest April tally since 2020. Outbound loads (4,689 TEUs) were up 686 TEUs (+20.1%) from a year earlier. Total YTD traffic (30,484 TEUs) was down 2,614 TEUs from the same months last year, but up from the 20 TEUs the port handled in the first four months of 2019.   

April saw the Northwest Seaport Alliance Ports of Tacoma and Seattle handle 105,370 inbound loaded TEUs, an 8.8% increase from a year earlier, although down 6.5% from April 2019. Outbound loads (53,558 TEUs) were meanwhile down 1.7% from a year earlier and 34.1% off the volume reported in April 2019. Total container traffic through the two Washington State ports through April of this year (1,110,396 TEUs) fell short of the volume handled in the first four months of 2019 by 11.6%. 

Over the border in British Columbia, the Port of Vancouver, reported 166,853 inbound loaded TEUs in April, up 3.7% from a year earlier and 14.9% the level recorded in April 2019. Outbound loads from Canada’s top maritime gateway in April (70,377 TEUs) were up 2.9% year-over-year but down 27.7% from April 2019. Total container traffic YTD (1,196,197 TEUs) represented a 5.5% gain over the same months five years ago. 

The Port of Prince Rupert, Canada’s third busiest container port, handled 36,125 inbound loaded TEUs in April, up 14.3% year-over-year but down 30.1% from the volume of inbound loads processed in April 2019. Outbound loads in April (9,995 TEUs) were up 10.1% from a year earlier but down 50.7% from April 2019. Total container movements YTD (256,593 TEUs) were down 25.9% from the same months in 2019.    

Along the Mid-Atlantic Coast, 135,596 inbound loaded TEUs were discharged in April at the Port of Virginia. That represented a 7.6% year-over-year fall-off but still remained 13.7% above the number of inbound loads handled in April 2019. Outbound loads this April (94,396 TEUs) were down by 9.3% from a year earlier but were 10.6% above April 2019’s volume. Total container traffic YTD (1,108,358 TEUs) were up by 16.2% over the first four months of 2019.

Georgia’s Port of Savannah reported the arrival of 252,631 inbound loaded TEUs in April, a 19.7% year-over-year bump as well as a 43.8% gain over April 2019. Outbound loads (126,880 TEUs) were up 3.6% from a year earlier but still down 2.2% from April 2019. Total container traffic this year through April (1,947,571 TEUs) represented a 28.4% gain over the same period in 2019.   

Down along the Gulf Coast, Port Houston processed 177,733 inbound loaded TEUs in April, up 21.0% from a year earlier and up 76.5% over April 2019. Outbound loads (138,810 TEUs) were up 16.4% from the previous April and up 30.1% from April 2019. Total container traffic through the Texas port over the first four months of this year (1,456,173 TEUs) represented a 53.8% gain over the same months in 2019.