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Maritime shipping

Port of Long Beach — Monthly Container Volume

Monthly container throughput at the Port of Long Beach, the second-busiest US container port, in TEUs including loaded imports, loaded exports and empty containers.

Data status: Current
Official statisticCK forecastSource figures as of October 9, 2026 · Exponential smoothing, damped trend, 6 months, 80% range of backtest errorsSources & methods
Sources
Port of Long Beach
Period covered
Jan 2004 – Aug 2026
Source figures as of
October 9, 2026
Geography
Port of Long Beach, CA
Sector
Transportation, Maritime Trade & Logistics · Maritime shipping
Seasonal adjustment
Not seasonally adjusted
Transformations
Views other than the level (changes, averages, volatility) are calculated by CK Economics from these figures
Forecast method
Exponential smoothing, damped trend
Assumptions
Past patterns continue, with no policy change or shock; fitted to Sep 2006 – Aug 2026
Horizon
6 months
Interval
80% range of backtest errors
Backtest
Errors 8% smaller than a no-change forecast over the next 3 months, 5% smaller than repeating the same period a year earlier 3–6 months ahead (40 past dates)
Estimated
October 16, 2026
Revisions
Replaced with the source’s latest figures whenever it revises them.
Data status
Current
Limitations
Seasonal swings are left in: compare a period with the same period a year earlier.

Full method · Research standards

Key figures

CK estimateTEUs · calculated by CK Economics from Port of Long Beach data

Latest · Aug 2026
919,992
+2.0% vs a year earlier1
12 months to Aug 2026
9,966,966
−1.8% vs prior 12 months2
5-year change
+13.9%
since Aug 2021, +2.6% a year3
10-year change
+43.5%
since Aug 2016, +3.7% a year3
Record high
987,191
Oct 20244
Record low
314,749
Feb 20044
Where the latest ranks
98th pct.
Higher than 98% of the other 271 observations since Jan 20045
CK forecast · Feb 2027
748,000
80% range 616,000–908,0006
  1. 1Latest observation against the observation one year earlier (for weekly data, the nearest within three days).
  2. 2Sum of the latest 12 consecutive months against the sum of the 12 months before them.
  3. 3Latest observation against the observation five and ten years earlier; the yearly rate is the compound annual growth rate over the span.
  4. 4Highest and lowest published observations across the full history shown.
  5. 5Share of the other published observations that are lower than the latest one, rounded down.
  6. 6Final period of the CK forecast, a statistical projection from the model in the methodology, with its 80% range; rounded to three significant figures.

Seasonal pattern

CK estimate

Each month of 2026 and 2025 against the average and range of the same month in 2021–2025. Calculated by CK Economics from the published series.

Monthly TEUs in 2026 and 2025 compared with the 2021–2025 average and range
2026 2025 2021–2025 average 2021–2025 range

Methodology

Total TEUs per month as published in the Port of Long Beach's monthly TEU archive, including empty containers. A TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) is the standard measure of container volume; one 40-foot container is 2 TEUs. Series starts in January 2004: earlier monthly figures in the port's archive do not reconcile with its published annual totals. From 2004 every year reconciles to the port's annual totals within a few TEU, except 2009. 2009: monthly figures are as originally reported. The port's revised 2009 annual total is 4,990,135 TEU (1.5% lower than the sum of the months; loaded imports −73,759, empties −3,701), with no revised monthly breakdown published. Figures independently checked against port announcements for 2015, 2016, 2020, 2024, 2025 and 2026. Figures may be revised by the port. Projection: CK Economics statistical projection. The central path comes from exponential smoothing (ETS) on the logarithm of the series with a damped additive trend and a 12-month seasonal pattern, so recent growth is carried forward but fades over time. It runs only as far ahead as backtests support: the model is refitted at past dates, its forecasts are scored against what happened, and it is shown only for horizons where its errors were at least 5% smaller than those of the better of a no-change forecast and repeating the same month a year earlier. The shaded band is the 80% range of those backtest errors. It is a conditional estimate that extrapolates past patterns: it does not model policy, tariffs, recessions or other shocks, and it is not an official forecast of the source agency.

How we collect, check and project every dataset →

Source

Port of Long Beach, Port Statistics — TEUs archive (1995 to present): https://polb.com/business/port-statistics/ — figures as published on 9 October 2026.

The 6 projected periods are a CK forecast, not figures from the source; the methodology above describes how they are made.

All data

272 observations, newest first · TEUs

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PeriodValueChange y/y
Aug 2026919,992+2.0%
Jul 2026928,508−1.7%
Jun 2026779,331+10.6%
May 2026842,030+31.7%
Apr 2026817,992−5.7%
Mar 2026774,935−5.2%
Feb 2026767,525+0.3%
Jan 2026847,765−11.0%
Dec 2025834,119−3.1%
Nov 2025817,561−7.5%
Oct 2025839,671−14.9%
Sep 2025797,537−3.9%
Aug 2025901,846−1.3%
Jul 2025944,232+7.0%
Jun 2025704,403−16.4%
May 2025639,160−8.2%
Apr 2025867,493+15.6%
Mar 2025817,457+25.0%
Feb 2025765,385+13.4%
Jan 2025952,733+41.4%
Dec 2024861,006+21.3%
Nov 2024884,154+20.9%
Oct 2024987,191+30.7%
Sep 2024829,4990.0%

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