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Accredited official statistics

Sea passenger statistics: overview 2025

Published 29 July 2026

© Crown copyright 2026

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This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/sea-passenger-statistics-all-routes-2025/sea-passenger-statistics-overview-2025

About this release

This statistical release presents final statistics of sea passengers on both international and domestic routes to and from the UK for 2025.

These statistics include all vehicle drivers (including Heavy Goods Vehicle drivers), their passengers and foot passengers on ferries.

You can use our maritime interactive dashboard to further explore international sea passenger trends.

Definitions 

This statistical release presents the complete statistics on all sea passengers to and from the UK in 2025. It includes (infographic 1):  

International passengers: These include all passengers travelling on international short sea routes, cruises and long sea journeys to and from the UK. 

Domestic passengers: All other short sea passenger routes, including routes between Great Britain and the Orkney and Shetland Islands, domestic cruises, domestic river crossings and inter-island routes.

Infographic 1: Breakdown of types of sea passenger routes

Summary of sea passenger statistics

International sea passenger numbers decreased to 18.1 million in 2025, 2% lower than 2024. Domestic sea passenger numbers increased by 2% from 38.3 million in 2024 to 39.2 million in 2025.  

After the sharp decrease from 2019 to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic, total sea passenger figures recovered sharply initially but this increase has slowed year on year. In 2025, numbers for international and domestic sea passengers remained respectively 12% and 7% below 2019 levels.

Chart 1: UK domestic and international sea passengers, 2015 to 2025

Within international passengers in 2025, the total number of short sea passengers (on ferry routes) decreased by 2% to 14.9 million, suggesting a levelling of the trend at 19% below 2019 levels. International cruise passenger numbers followed a different trend, recovering strongly since the coronavirus pandemic and exceeding 2019 levels in 2023. In 2025, they remained stable at 3.1 million (chart 2), unchanged from 2024, but 51% higher than 2019 levels.

Chart 2: Cruise and long sea passengers, 2005 to 2025 (SPAS0101, SPAS0107)

For domestic passengers in 2025: 

  • the total number of passengers on domestic sea crossings remained stable at 3.8 million, 9% higher than 2019 levels 

  • inter-island passengers increased by 1% compared to 2024, but remained 12% lower than in 2019  

  • the number of passengers on river ferries increased 4% compared to 2024, but was 4% lower than in 2019

Useful information 

We would welcome any feedback on these statistics by sea-passenger.stats@dft.gov.uk. We will attempt to address any comments in a subsequent release. 

The data tables for sea passenger statistics are available. 

Provisional summary totals for international sea passenger traffic are released monthly in SPAS0107. 

Full guidance on the methods used in the publication of these releases, and the quality of the data, and known users and uses of the statistics are available. 

The sea passenger statistics are accredited official statistics. The statistics presented in this release were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in February 2013 and are therefore labelled ‘accredited official statistics’. 

Details of ministers and officials who receive pre-release access to these statistics up to 24 hours before release are available. 

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