Accredited official statistics

Port Freight Quarterly (January to March 2026)

Published 10 June 2026

Overview of Quarterly Port Freight Statistics

As with all the quarterly figures, these estimates are provisional until finalised with the annual publication in the following calendar year, for example 2025 estimates will be finalised in July 2026.

When comparing January to March 2026 with January to March 2025 through UK major ports (PORT0502):

• total freight tonnage decreased by 3% to 104.7 million tonnes

• inward tonnage showed little change, decreasing by less than 1% to 72.3 million tonnes

• outward tonnage decreased by 7% to 32.5 million tonnes

• total volume of unitised traffic showed little change, decreasing by less than 1% to 4.7 million units

• inward units increased by 1% to 2.6 million units

• outward units decreased by 2% to 2.1 million units

When comparing the rolling year to March 2026 with March 2025 through UK major ports (PORT0502):

• total tonnage decreased by 2% to 416.7 million tonnes

• total volume of unitised traffic, showed little change, increasing by less than 1% to 21.4 million units

Method and coverage

The following commentary is based on statistics in PORT0503, these estimates are based on total tonnage and units provided by the port which are validated to a high standard and published as accredited official statistics in PORT0502. These totals are then split by cargo groups based on data provided by shipping agents. If no shipping agent data is received for a port, then no estimates can be created. Since Q3 (July to September) 2022, where large amounts of data from a shipping agent are missing in the current quarter, a value has been imputed from the equivalent quarter in the previous year to allow for more accurate national trend analysis. This method is still under development and any feedback from users is welcome at Maritime.Stats@dft.gov.uk.

The agents and ports data might not always match due to missing agent data, or differences in how ports and agents categorise certain shipments. During the annual validations process the department carries out extensive matching between these two data sources and queries the data providers to finalise the annual dataset. During quarterly validations, only high-level matching is conducted. Therefore, PORT0502 should always be used for accurate trend analysis.

Port freight trends by cargo type estimates

Chart 1: UK major port freight tonnage traffic by cargo group since 2022 (PORT0503)

The figures in this chart are timelier estimates, for high quality trend analysis of cargo groups, please use our 2025 port freight annual statistics when published in July 2026.

Chart 1 shows UK quarterly major port tonnage from 2022 to Q1 2026 with different lines for the different cargo group estimates.

Liquid bulk remains the largest category, accounting for 39% of all major port tonnage in Q1 2026. However, liquid bulk has steadily been declining since the beginning of 2022 and decreased by 4% in Q1 2026 compared to Q1 2025, largely driven by the closures of Lindsey oil refinery at Grimsby and Immingham and Finnart oil terminal at Clyde.

Furthermore, the closure or transition of major industrial facilities, such as the blast furnaces at Port Talbot and the UK’s last coal-fired power station at Ratcliffe-on-Soar has reduced the need for importing raw materials and exporting bulk products.

Nevertheless, liquid bulk tonnage has increased in Q1 2026 compared to the previous quarter (Q4 2025), up 7% because of increased seasonal energy demands.

Ro-Ro Freight remains above dry bulk this quarter, but accounts for 62% of the overall decline in tonnage from Q1 2025 to Q1 2026.

In the past two years, container traffic has rapidly closed the gap to dry bulk. From a dip in Q3 2024, container traffic has risen by 22% to Q1 2026 even with the decline this quarter – this is largely due to the opening of the London’s fourth berth at London Gateway. The trends for each cargo type are explored in more detail below.

Chart 2 shows how different cargo estimates have changed for the 3 UK major ports with the largest overall decrease in tonnage handled from Q1 2025 to Q1 2026, and Chart 3 shows this for the 3 UK major ports with the largest overall increase in tonnage handled.

Chart 2: The top 3 UK major ports with the largest overall decreases in tonnage handled from Q1 2025 to Q1 2026, segmented by cargo group (PORT0503)

Chart 3: The top 3 UK major ports with the largest overall increases in tonnage handled from Q1 2025 to Q1 2026, segmented by cargo group (PORT0503)

Note: some ports do not handle all of the cargo groups in the key. Cargo groups that are not handled at the port will not appear on these charts.

Furthermore, some cargo groups round to 0.0 due to their small values, but they are not truly null. As the underlying data is non‑zero, they still show up in the chart.

Liquid Bulk

Liquid bulk tonnage through UK major ports has decreased by 4% to 41.0 million tonnes in Q1 2026 compared to Q1 2025.

Chart 2 shows that this decline was largely driven by Grimsby and Immingham, which saw a 2.1 million tonnes decrease (a 45% drop), primarily due to the closure of Lindsey oil refinery in 2025.

Despite substantial increases in liquid bulk at Milford Haven and Liverpool, as illustrated in Chart 3, these gains were offset by notable declines elsewhere, including decreases of 0.6 and 0.5 million tonnes at Clyde and London, respectively. Finnart oil terminal at Clyde closed at the end of 2025 following the shutdown of Grangemouth oil refinery.

However, liquid bulk tonnage did increase in Q1 2026 compared to Q4 2025 by 7% due to higher seasonal energy demands, as shown in Chart 1.

Dry Bulk

Dry bulk tonnage rose by 3% to 19.4 million tonnes in Q1 2026 compared to Q1 2025. As shown in Chart 2, this increase was largely driven by Grimsby and Immingham, which saw the largest rise among UK major ports, up 1.0 million tonnes (a 45% rise). However, this gain was outweighed by larger declines in liquid bulk, resulting in an overall reduction in total tonnage at the port.

Containers

Container tonnage decreased by 1% to 16.6 million tonnes in Q1 2026 compared to Q1 2025. Chart 2 shows that this decline was largely driven by Felixstowe, which recorded a 0.9 million tonnes decrease (a 17% drop) during this period.

Chart 4 shows UK quarterly major port unitised traffic by cargo group from 2022 to Q1 2026 with different lines for the different cargo group estimates. 

Chart 4: UK major port freight unitised traffic by cargo group since 2022 (PORT0503)

When measured in units, container traffic increased by 1% to 1,524 thousand units in Q1 2026 compared to Q1 2025. This small overall change masks larger changes at individual ports. Continuing upward trends across recent quarters, London’s container traffic increased 65,000 units (a 19% rise) from Q1 2025 to Q1 2026. 

In contrast, Felixstowe’s unitised container traffic declined, with volumes down by 88,000 units (a 16% drop) over from Q1 2025 to Q1 2026 (also reflecting a drop in tonnage). The opposing trends at these two ports are partly driven by a major corporation relocating its container operations from Felixstowe to London Gateway.

Ro-Ro Freight

Ro-Ro freight tonnage decreased by 7% to 22.1 million tonnes in Q1 2026 compared to Q1 2025. The decline was driven by small reductions across several UK major ports, with around 0.4 million tonnes decrease both at Larne and at Cairnryan.

Ro-Ro Freight unitised traffic saw a 1% decrease when compared to Q1 2025.

Ro-Ro Non-Freight

In Q1 2026, Ro-Ro non-freight units fell by 2% to 1.3 million units compared to Q1 2025. This was largely driven by Southampton which saw a 22,000-unit decrease (a 34% fall), the largest among UK major ports.

Since Q4 2025, Ro-Ro non-freight unitised traffic saw a decline of 15% which can be attributed to seasonal variation as shown in Chart 4.

Definitions

Unitised goods: Goods which are lifted on or off the vessel in large (20 foot or longer) shipping containers or rolled on or off in 1 of a variety of self-propelled or towed units are said to be unitised cargoes. For these cargo types, the number of units as well as the weight of goods is recorded. The exception is passenger cars, which do not carry cargo and therefore we collect only the number of units.

Tonnage: Gross weight in tonnes, including crates and other packaging. The tare weights of containers, road goods vehicles, trailers and other items of transport equipment (the unloaded weight of the vehicle or equipment itself) are excluded.

Liquid bulk: Consists of any liquid or liquid gas that is transported in a tank.

Dry bulk: Carried in the main cargo hold of bulk carrier vessels, for example coal, ores and scrap metal.

Containers (Lo-Lo): Consists of container traffic. Container (Lo-Lo) traffic is measured in both tonnes and units, where 1 unit is 1 container, and tonnage measures the weight of the cargo being carried, excluding the weight of the container itself, so an empty container has a weight of 0.

Roll-on/Roll-off (Ro-Ro): Cargo that can be moved on to, or off, a vessel either by their own propulsion (such as a passenger car) or with assistance (such as an unaccompanied trailer). Detailed information is available in this category flowchart.

Ro-Ro freight traffic: All Ro-Ro units that carry cargo, both accompanied and unaccompanied, it is measured in both tonnes and units, where 1 unit is 1 vehicle or trailer, and tonnage measures the weight of the cargo being carried, excluding the weight of the vehicle itself, so an empty unit has a weight of 0.

Ro-Ro non-freight traffic: All other Roll-on/Roll-off traffic that does not carry cargo, such as passenger vehicles, import/export vehicles and unaccompanied caravans. Passenger vehicles are counted in units but do not have a tonnage as they are carrying no cargo, therefore Ro-Ro non-freight tonnage is mostly import/export vehicles.

Accompanied: Road goods vehicles carrying freight accompanied by the driver on the sea crossing.

Unaccompanied: Road goods vehicles without the accompanied cab, rolled on and off the vessel by port operations and collected by a new driver at the destination port.

Background information

The tables give further detail of the key results presented in this statistical release. They are available from port and domestic waterborne freight statistics.

These notes provide further information such as definitions and a list of UK ports is available in the accompanying port list.

The background quality report provides further information on how the data is collected, quality assured and comparisons with relevant data sources.

Details of Ministers and officials who receive pre-release access to these statistics up to 24 hours before release can be found on the pre-release access list.

About these statistics

These statistics are labelled as official statistics in development. Official statistics in development (previously Experimental Statistics) are official statistics that are undergoing a development; they may be new or existing statistics, and will be tested with users, in line with the standards of trustworthiness, quality, and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics.

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