Tanger Med, ranked 17th in the world in 2024, has not released its half-yearly figures and therefore does not appear in this ranking. Data source: Port authorities, Chinese Ministry of Transport
In the first half of 2025, almost all the ports in the world's Top 20 (excluding Tanger Med, which has not published half-yearly data) recorded growth in activity. Only Hong Kong and Kaoshiung suffered a year-on-year decline.
Chinese ports retain six of the top 10 positions in the global ranking, with Shenzhen boasting the highest growth rate among the nine Chinese ports in the Top 20. At the bottom of the ranking, Beibu Gulf continues to gain ground, moving from 20th place in the first half of 2024 to 18th place in H1 2025. Tanjung Pelepas has the strongest increase in the Top 20. The Malaysian port has benefited from the reorganisation of maritime alliances, with Gemini making it one of the main hubs of its new system.
The two European representatives in the Top 20, Rotterdam and Antwerp-Bruges, are side by side in 11th and 12th place, with Antwerp gaining one place thanks to the decline of Hong Kong. Finally, the American ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach experienced very significant growth, clearly benefiting from a rebound in traffic linked to frontloading in anticipation of additional tariffs. The combined traffic of these two ports is 9.7 million TEUs, which ranks it as the United States' leading port and takes the 9th place in the world.
Data source: Port authorities and Cosco for the Piraeus Container Terminal
The results of European ports in the first half of 2025 reflect globally modest growth, mirroring a still sluggish European economy. While Rotterdam and Antwerp are making slow progress, the 3rd-placed port, Hamburg, has benefited from the restructuring of maritime alliances, as has Bremen/Bremerhaven. On the side of the North Sea ports, Haropa also recorded an honourable result.
On the other hand, on the Mediterranean coast, Spanish ports have suffered the repercussions of the normalisation of passage via the Cape of Good Hope. In 2024, the diversion of container ships benefited them by boosting transhipment activity. Since then, supply chains have adapted. In the first half of 2025, transhipment activity was down 3.6% to 2 million TEUs in Algeciras, 5% to 1.3 million TEUs in Valencia, and 21.3% to 751,964 tonnes in Barcelona, according to data from Puertos del Estado. Valencia nevertheless manages to maintain growth in overall container traffic, thanks to the growth of full containers for import (+15.2%) and export (+4.8%). Barcelona also highlights healthy traffic of full containers for exports (+8%) and imports (+12%), but this was not enough to ensure overall traffic growth.
The Italian port of Gioia Tauro stands out for its strong growth, the strongest in the European Top 10. The Genoa + Savona ecosystem also recorded a good performance with total traffic of 1.49 million TEUs, up 7.9%, which places it at the foot of the Top 10 podium. Finally, Piraeus is returning to growth, after having suffered particularly from the near-paralysis of the Suez Canal in 2024. It regained some of the lost ground with growth of 4.9%, while traffic had fallen by 12.9% in the first half of 2024.
Marseille-Fos, finally, remains far from the Top 10, and had to make do with a growth of 1% in the first half, to 729,000 TEUs. "This growth is driven by trade with Asia, particularly China and India, while flows with the United States are declining due to the suspension of a USEC line (US East Coast)," the port said.
Data source: port authorities.
Nearly all U.S. ports experienced growth in the first half of 2025, even though the reference period, that of the first half of 2024, was already experiencing strong growth. Los Angeles/Long Beach, the leading gateway to the United States, strengthened its position with cumulative growth of 14.7%.
The first-half growth obviously owes much to the frontloading of orders, before the imposition of additional, sometimes crushing, tariffs: the three main ports in the United States recorded growth in results during the first four months of the year, before a sharp decline in May when tariffs imposed on Chinese imports briefly rose to 145%. Growth then resumed thanks to the truce, still in anticipation of a scenario that could turn dark.
Source: Chinese Ministry of Transport
Chinese ports benefited from demand for frontloading of orders in the United States. Most of them are recording rather dynamic growth, which has also been fueled by the development of flows with other parts of the world. Beibu Gulf, which includes three ports located in coastal cities in the Guangxi Zhuang region, continues on a very positive trajectory since it is the only one, along with Shenzhen, to exceed 10% growth. This increase is fueled by the increase in trade between China and Southeast Asia, which increased by 13.5% in value between January and July 2025.