Maritime freight and vessels statistics (2024)

Seaborne freight handled in European ports slightly increased in 2022

The total gross weight of goods handled in EU ports was estimated at 3.5 billion tonnes in 2022, slightly increasing compared with 2021 (+0.8%). Despite the rebound after the substantial fall observed in 2020, most probably due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent restrictions put in place in the EU and worldwide, the 2022 levels are slightly still lower than those observed in 2018. Before the downturn in 2020, EU port freight activity followed a positive trend from 2014 indicating a slight path towards recovery after the economic crisis in 2009. After the first quarter of 2021 decreased when comparing with the same quarter of the previous year, a clear upturn was observed in the three last quarters of 2021 and the two first quarters of 2022.Then, a downward trend was recorded in the last two quarters of 2022, with -0.1% in the third quarter and -2.2% in the fourth quarter (Figure 1).

The Netherlands remained the largest maritime freight transport country in Europe in 2022, while Rotterdam, Antwerp-Bruges^[1], Hamburg, Amsterdam, Algeciras, HAROPA^[2] and Marseille maintained their positions as the seven largest freight ports in the EU.

Among the EU Member States, the seaborne freight-per-capita ratio varied from 33.3 tonnes per inhabitant in the Netherlands to 3.2 tonnes per inhabitant in Poland and Romania in 2022. The EU average was 7.8 tonnes per inhabitant. However, the EFTA country Norway recorded the highest ratio of the countries reporting maritime data to Eurostat, with 39.4 tonnes per inhabitant in 2022 (Figure 2).

The Netherlands is EU’s largest maritime freight transport country

The Netherlands reported the largest volume of seaborne freight handled in Europe in 2022. At 590million tonnes, the volume of seaborne goods handled in Dutch ports represented 17.0% of the EU total in 2022. The Netherlands was followed by Spain and Italy, with respective shares of 14.1% and 13.7% (Figure 3).

Among other countries reporting maritime freight data to Eurostat, the candidate country Türkiye handled 536million tonnes of goods in 2022, placing this country between the Netherlands and Spain in terms of total tonnage of seaborne goods handled.

Compared with 2021, 15 out of 22 EU Member States registered a growth in port freight activity in 2022. Malta registered the largest relative increase (+45.1%), followed by Poland (+23.1%), Bulgaria (+20.2%), Cyprus (+17.9%), Latvia (+16.0%), Romania (+13.4%) and Slovenia (+11.6%). Montenegro also reported a noticeable increase of 57.6%. In contrast, the highest relative falls were observed for Lithuania (-19.0%) and Estonia (-15.5%).

All in all, only six Member States, recorded decreases in port freight activity in the ten-year period between 2012 and 2022. The highest relative falls were observed for Latvia (-36.6%), Estonia (-23.4%), France (-6.8%) and Germany (-6.6%). In contrast, Poland registered the largest relative increase (+102.2%), followed by Romania (+52.5%) and Malta (+47.0%). Five other EU Member States registered growths higher than 24% over the same period, while five additional countries recorded growths higher than 10%. Montenegro, Türkiye and Iceland also reported noticeable increases: +151.9%, +43.0% and +21.3%, respectively.

Inward movements of goods to the EU countries increased by 4.7% to almost than 2.2 billion tonnes in 2022 compared with 2021, whereas outwards movements decreased by 5.0% to just under 1.4 billion tonnes. Inward movements accounted for 62.2% of the total tonnes of goods handled in the EU ports (Figure 4). Liquid bulk goods, such as crude oil and oil products, made up a substantial proportion of the inward tonnage.

More seaborne goods are unloaded from vessels than loaded onto vessels in the majority of EU countries. Malta had the highest shares of unloaded goods in 2022, with 92% of the total tonnes of seaborne goods recorded as inward movements to their ports. In contrast, Estonia, Latvia, the EFTA country Norway as well as the candidate country Montenegro all had more outward movements of goods than inwards movements.

In 2022, liquid bulk made up 37.0% of the total cargo handled in the main EU ports

Liquid bulk goods accounted for 37.0% of the total cargo handled in the main EU ports in 2022 (Figure 5), followed by dry bulk goods (22.9%), containerised goods (22.8%), and goods transported on Ro-Ro mobile units (11.9%). The largest volumes of liquid bulk goods were handled in the Netherlands (276million tonnes), followed by Italy (197million tonnes) and Spain (181million tonnes). France recorded the highest share of liquid bulk goods as a percentage of the total tonnages passing through its main ports in 2022 (47.1%). Liquid bulk goods were predominant in 13 other EU Member states.

With 151million tonnes in 2022, Dutch ports also handled the largest volumes of dry bulk goods in the EU, followed by Spain with 103million tonnes. Even so, the tonnages of dry bulk goods handled in both the Netherlands and Spain in 2022 were lower than the 203million tonnes reported by Türkiye. Romania had the highest share of dry bulk goods as a percentage of the total tonnages in 2022 (55.9%), mainly reflecting large volumes of outward movements of agricultural products from its ports. Latvia (55.6%) and Poland (35.0%) were the other EU Member States where dry bulk goods were predominant. That was also the case in the EFTA country Norway (46.0%) and in the candidate countries Montenegro (69.5%) and Türkiye (37.9%).

Containers were the dominant type of cargo handled in Slovenian, German and Belgian ports in 2022, with shares of 40.3%, 39.8% and 37.9%, respectively, of the total cargo passing through the ports of the three countries. The largest volumes of containerised goods, however, were handled in Spanish and Dutch ports, with 152million tonnes and 113million tonnes, respectively. The two top container countries were followed by Germany and Belgium with 111 and 109million tonnes of containerised, respectively.

The share of Ro-Ro mobile units in the total tonnage of goods was the highest for Ireland (31.6%) and Denmark (28.8%), reflecting the importance of Ro-Ro ferry traffic in the seaborne transport of these countries. In tonnage terms, Italy (90million tonnes) recorded the largest EU volumes of goods transported on Ro-Ro mobile units in 2022.

In 2022, the largest individual goods category handled in the main EU ports was ‘Coal and lignite; crude petroleum and natural gas’

Figure 6 presents the share of the type of goods (according to the NST 2007 classification) handled in the main EU ports. It shall be noted that the high share of unidentifiable goods reported has an impact on the results presented.

At EU level, the main types of goods (according to the NST 2007 classification) handled in the main EU ports were ‘coal and lignite; crude petroleum and natural gas’ (18.9%) and ‘co*ke and refined petroleum products’ (17.1%), in 2022. These two categories accounted for more than one third of all goods handled in the main EU ports.

The seven largest cargo ports in the EU remained the same in 2022 compared with 2021

Rotterdam, Antwerpen and Hamburg, all located on the North Sea coast, maintained their positions as EU's top three ports in 2022, both in terms of gross weight of goods handled and in terms of volume of containers handled in the ports. The 20 largest cargo ports accounted for half (50.2%) of the total tonnage of goods handled in the EU ports in 2022. The largest port in Europe, Rotterdam in the Netherlands, on its own accounted for 12.3% of the total tonnage handled in the EU ports (Figure 7).

The seven largest cargo ports in the EU remained the same in 2022 compared with 2021. Among the top 20 EU ports, the tonnes of goods handled in 2022 decreased in 10 ports compared with 2021. The highest falls were recorded by Piraeus (-8.8%), Bremerhaven (-8.6%), Valencia (-7.1%) and Hamburg (--7.0%). In contrast, Gdańsk reported the highest growth, with ++40.3%, followed by Cartagena (+17.3%), Constanţa (+15.2%) and ‘Zeeland Seaports’ (+11.0%).

It should be noted that Göteborg and Cartagena entered the top 20 EU ports in 2022 in positions, 19 and 20 whilst in 2021 they were in positions 21 and 25.

While inward activity was prevalent in 17 of the top 20 ports, the ports Bremerhaven (55.2%), Valencia (51.5%) and Constanţa (50.7%) recorded slightly more outward than inward movements of goods (Figure 8).

The most specialised of the top 20 cargo ports in handling containers were Bremerhaven (88.0% of the total tonnage handled in the port in 2022), Piraeus (84.4%) and Valencia (71.0%). The most specialised in handling liquid bulk goods were Cartagena (77.2%) and Trieste (64.9%); the most specialised in handling dry bulk goods were Constanţa (55.6%) and ‘Zeeland Seaports’ (54.0%); the most specialised in handling goods transported on Ro-Ro mobile units was Göteborg (22.3%) (Figure 9).

All in all, eight of the top 20 EU cargo ports in 2022 were located on the Mediterranean, seven on the North Sea coast of Europe, three ports on the Atlantic coast, one port in the Baltic Sea and one port in the Black Sea (Map 1). The composition of the national port infrastructure will sometimes determine whether a country is represented in the top 20 list of cargo ports or not. Denmark and Finland, for instance, are countries with a large number of medium-sized ports, all handling volumes of goods lower than the 36million annual tonnes required to make the top 20 list.

Most EU maritime freight transport is with extra-EU partners

Unlike statistics presented earlier in this article, the data in Table 1 and Figure 10 do not present the total handling of goods in ports (inward movements plus outward movements in the ports), but present the seaborne transport of goods between the main European ports and their partner ports. As far as possible, double-counting of the same goods being reported as outward transport in one port and inward transport in another port is excluded in these figures (see data sources).

At 3.0 billion tonnes, the EU seaborne transport of goods increased between 2021 and 2022 (+3.5%) (Table 1). The majority of these goods (67.5%) were transported to or from ports outside the EU (international extra EU transport), making maritime transport the most common mode for long distance transport of goods to or from the EU, in tonnage terms. Cross-border transport between ports in the EU (international intra EU transport) made up 21.2% of the maritime transport of goods in 2022, while transport of goods between national ports made up 7.5% of the total EU maritime transport (Figure 10).

In countries with long shorelines or a large number of islands, like Italy and Greece, as well as Norway, the share of national seaborne transport tends to be relatively high (19-20% in 2022). Countries like Estonia, Finland, Malta, Sweden, Latvia, Cyprus and Denmark on the other hand, had high shares of international intra-EU transport (above 50% in 2022), because their main maritime freight transport partners are found within the EU. Other countries, like Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Romania, Slovenia, Belgium, Spain, Croatia and Germany (above 60% in 2022), have high shares of extra-EU transport, based on their geographical position or the "deep sea" nature of the transport activities prevailing in their main ports.

Map 2 illustrates the largest maritime transport flows between the EU and the main international partners. As shown in the map, all of the EU’s top 10 maritime flows of goods in 2022 were inward flows, with the exception of the outward flow to the United Kingdom. In declining order, these were the inward flows of goods from the East Coast of the USA (6.8% of the total extra-EU seaborne transport in 2022), the outward flow to the United Kingdom (5.3%), the inward flows from the United Kingdom (5.0%), the Baltic Sea area of Russia (4.2%), Türkiye (4.2%), Norway (4.2%) , China (3.7%), Brazil (3.6%), the Black Sea area of Russia (3.4%) and Egypt (2.6%).

In 2022, 96.0million TEUs of containers were handled in the main EU ports

In 2022, 96.0million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) were handled in the main EU ports (Figure 11), decreasing by 4.0% compared with 2021. When looking at loaded containers, the decrease in 2022 was more substantial (-6.6%) whereas the handling of empty containers substantially grew by 9.1%.

Spain reported the largest volumes of containers handled in Europe in 2022. At 17.1million TEUs, the volume of containers handled in Spanish ports represented 17.8% of the EU total in 2022 (Figure 12). Spain was followed by the Netherlands (15.4%), Germany (14.4% of the EU total), Belgium (12.8%) and Italy (11.1%). All together, these five countries had almost 72% of the containers handled in main EU ports in 2022.

All countries reported more loaded containers than empty containers. The share of empty containers handled was the lowest in Malta and Italy (0.5% and 2.1% of the containers handled in the main ports of the country, respectively) and the highest in Finland (36.1%) (Figure 13).

With 14.0million TEUs handled, Rotterdam was EU’s largest container port in 2022 (Figure 14). Rotterdam was followed by Antwerp-Bruges with 12.3million TEUs and Hamburg with 8.4million TEUs handled in total. All in all, five of the top 20 container ports recorded increases in the number of TEUs handled compared with 2021. In relative terms, the largest growth was observed for Klaipėda (+57.1%), which entered the top 20 EU container ports gaining 12 positions compared with 2021. Trieste also recorded a large increase by 23.1%, allowing the port to reach the 19th position of the ranking after gaining four places compared to 2021. In contrast, the largest relative falls amongst the top 20 EU container ports were recorded by La Spezia (20.2%), Valencia (-9.9%), Sines (-8.8%), Bremerhaven (-8.2%) and Rotterdam (-7.1%).

All top 20 EU container ports reported more loaded containers than empty containers. The share of empty containers handled was the lowest in Trieste (0.9% of the containers handled in the main ports of the country) and the highest in Klaipėda (32.9%) (Figure 15).

The average size of vessels calling at main EU ports is estimated at 7 300 gross tonnage per vessel

In 2022, the number of vessels calling (handling freight or embarking and disembarking passengers) in main EU ports was estimated at 2.2million, an increase of 12.0% from the previous year. Italy had the highest number of port calls in 2022 (504000 vessels), followed by Greece (448000 vessels), Denmark (324000 vessels), Croatia (274000 vessels), Spain (200000 vessels) and Germany (117000 vessels) (Table 2).

In 2022, the estimated gross tonnage (GT) of the vessels calling in EU ports increased to 16.4 billion GT (+14.0% from the previous year). Italy and Spain recorded the largest gross tonnage of vessels calling at its main ports in 2022 with 2.7 billion GT, each (Table 3).

In 2022, the average size of vessels calling in the main EU ports increased by 1.8% to slightly more than 7 300 GT (Figure 16).

Vessels in the category “Cargo, non-specialised” (which includes Ro-Ro vessels) made the highest share of calls in main EU ports in 2022 (69.6% of the vessels and 55.1% of the gross tonnage). When based on the number of vessels, the next category was passenger (excluding cruise passengers) vessels (14.2%), followed by cruise passenger vessels (6.4%), liquid bulk vessels (3.6%) and container vessels (2.9%) (Figure 17). When looking at the shares based on gross tonnage, container vessels came second, with 14.7%, followed by cruise passenger vessels (11.2%), liquid bulk vessels (8.4%) and dry bulk vessels (4.1%). Passenger vessels represented only 2.9% based on gross tonnage, indicating their lower size compared with the other types of vessels.

Source data for tables and graphs

• Maritime ports freight and passenger statistics: tables and figures

Data sources

This article presents the trends in freight transport and vessel traffic in European Union (EU) ports and also includes figures for Iceland, Norway, Montenegro and Türkiye. The content is based on data collected within the legal framework for EU maritime transport statistics, i.e. Directive 2009/42/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 May 2009 on statistical returns in respect of carriage of goods and passengers by sea and later amendments. Directive 2009/42/EC is a recast of the original Council Directive 95/64/EC of 8 December 1995.

The EU aggregates in the statistics refer to the total of 22 maritime Member States. Czechia, Luxembourg, Hungary, Austria and Slovakia have no maritime ports. Norway and Iceland provide Eurostat with data as members of the European Economic Area (EEA). The EEA country Liechtenstein has no maritime ports. Montenegro and Türkiye provide data as candidate countries.

“Main ports” are ports handling more than onemillion tonnes of goods or more than 200 000 passengers annually (however, data for some smaller ports may be included in the published results). Data are presented at level of “statistical ports”. A statistical port consists of one or more ports, normally controlled by a single port authority, able to record ship and cargo movements.

Explanatory notes:

Please note that data can be subject to revision and latest data are available in Eurostat's online database.

Basic results and derived indicators (such as growth rates and shares in% of total) in the tables are rounded. However, the figures are based on the non-rounded original data. As a result, the sum of shares in% of total, as shown in the tables, is not necessarily equal to 100%.

Explanatory notes for countries are available in the metadata on the Eurostat website.

Starting from 2011, the figures for Spain include data for a number of minor regional ports outside the state-controlled port system. There is a break in time series from 2021 due to methodological improvement in the data reported by the Netherlands. Montenegro started to report data on seaborne transport in 2012. Data have been partially estimated by Eurostat for a number of French ports for the period 2009-2016. Detailed data on main ports are not available for Iceland.

Type of cargo (Figures 5 and 9):

• Liquid bulk: liquefied gas, crude oil, oil products, other liquid bulk goods.
• Dry bulk: ores, coal, agricultural products (e.g. grain, soya, tapioca), other dry bulk goods.
• Large containers: 20 ft freight units, 40 ft freight units, freight units > 20 ft and < 40 ft, freight units > 40 ft.
• Ro-Ro mobile units:

a) Mobile self-propelled units: road goods vehicles and accompanying trailers, passenger cars, motorcycles and accompanying trailers/caravans, passenger buses, trade vehicles (including import/export motor vehicles), live animals on the hoof, other mobile self-propelled units.

b) Mobile non-self-propelled units: unaccompanied road goods trailers and semi-trailers, unaccompanied caravans and other road, agricultural and industrial vehicles, rail wagons, shipborne port-to-port trailers and shipborne barges engaged in goods transport, other mobile non-self-propelled units

• Other cargo: forestry products, iron and steel products, other general cargo.

The category “large containers” includes containers having a length of 20 feet or more. Smaller containers are included in the category “other cargo”. As a general rule, the container figures are limited to lift-on lift-off containers (Lo-Lo).

Transport calculation (Table 1 and Figure 10):In order to estimate maritime transport of goods between ports, the issue of "double counting" (the transport of the same goods being declared by both the port of loading (as outward movements) and the port of unloading (as inward movements) has to be addressed.Generally, when both the port of loading and the port of unloading are situated within the same statistical aggregate, only the incoming flows of goods declared by ports are summed up to determine the total maritime transport within the aggregate ("elimination of double counting"). The algorithm for the elimination of double counting is applied at statistical port level. Thus, the total maritime transport per country excludes the double counting of maritime transport within the country. Similarly, the total maritime transport for the EU excludes the double counting of national and international intra-EU maritime transport (see metadata on the Eurostat website for more information).

Please note that the recording of unknown port of loading or unloading may have influenced the transport figure calculations, as well as the shares of maritime transport allocated to intra-EU, extra-EU and National maritime transport.

Type of vessel (Figure 17):

• Liquid bulk: oil tanker, chemical tanker, LG tanker, tanker barge, other tanker.
• Dry bulk: bulk/oil carrier, bulk carrier.
• Container: full container.
• Cargo, specialised: barge carrier, chemical carrier, irradiated fuel, livestock carrier, vehicle carrier, other specialised.
• Cargo, non-specialised: reefer, Ro-Ro passenger, Ro-Ro container, other Ro-Ro cargo, combination carrier general cargo/passenger, combination carrier general cargo/container, single-decker, multi-decker.
• Passenger: passenger (excluding cruise passenger vessels).
• Other: cruise ships, offshore supply, dry cargo barges, tugs, miscellaneous, unknown type of vessel.

Special symbols used in the tables

':' not available

'-' not applicable

Context

The content of this statistical article is based on data collected within the framework of the EU maritime transport statistics Directive, i.e. Directive 2009/42/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 May 2009 on statistical returns in respect of carriage of goods and passengers by sea (OJ L141 of 6.6.2009, page 29), which is a recast of the original Council Directive 95/64 (EC) of 8 December 1995.

The basic legal act (Directive 2009/42/EC) was amended by:

• Commission Decision 2010/216/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 14 April 2010, OJ L 94, 15.4.2010, p. 33-40
• Regulation (EU) No 1090/2010 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24 November 2010, OJ L 325, 9.12.2010, p. 1-3
• Commission Delegated Decision 2012/186/EU of 3 February 2012 OJ L 101 of 11.4.2012 pp. 5-14.

The following legal acts include respectively the last official version of the list of ports and some dissemination aspects:

• Commission Decision 2001/423/EC of 22 May 2001 (on dissemination) OJ L 151 of 07.06.2001 p. 41
• Commission Delegated Decision (EU) 2018/1007 of 25 April 2018 supplementing Directive 2009/42/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards the list of ports and repealing Commission Decision 2008/861/EC (Text with EEA relevance.) OJ L 180, 17.7.2018, p. 29–71