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Maritime shipping

Port of Los Angeles — Monthly Container Volume

Monthly container throughput at the Port of Los Angeles, the busiest container port in the United States, 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, 3 months, 80% range of backtest errorsSources & methods
Sources
Port of Los Angeles
Period covered
Jan 1995 – Sep 2026
Source figures as of
October 9, 2026
Geography
Port of Los Angeles, 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 Oct 2006 – Sep 2026
Horizon
3 months
Interval
80% range of backtest errors
Backtest
Errors 13% smaller than a no-change forecast over the next 3 months (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 Los Angeles data

Latest · Sep 2026
1,042,652
+18.1% vs a year earlier1
12 months to Sep 2026
10,503,887
−0.2% vs prior 12 months2
5-year change
+15.4%
since Sep 2021, +2.9% a year3
10-year change
+39.4%
since Sep 2016, +3.4% a year3
Record high
1,042,652
Sep 20264
Record low
186,319
Feb 19964
Where the latest ranks
100th pct.
Higher than 100% of the other 380 observations since Jan 19955
CK forecast · Dec 2026
912,000
80% range 794,000–1,100,0006
  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 by the Port of Los Angeles, including empty containers. A TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) is the standard measure of container volume; one 40-foot container is 2 TEUs. Data are taken from the port's official yearly statistics tables and checked independently: monthly figures sum exactly to the port's published annual totals for every year 1995–2025 and to the 2026 year-to-date total, and spot-checked against port press releases. Notes: The November 2020 total appears garbled on the source page ("889.,748.15"); we use 889,746.15, which matches the same page's import and export totals, the published 2020 annual total and the port's November 2020 press release. The port revised December 2023 after its initial release (747,335 → 742,519 TEUs); the current official figure is used. 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 Los Angeles, Historical TEU Statistics (yearly tables, 1995–2026): https://www.portoflosangeles.org/business/statistics/container-statistics/historical-teu-statistics-2026 — figures as published on 9 October 2026.

The 3 projected periods are a CK forecast, not figures from the source; the methodology above describes how they are made.

All data

381 observations, newest first · TEUs

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PeriodValueChange y/y
Sep 20261,042,652+18.1%
Aug 2026955,907−0.3%
Jul 2026960,464−5.8%
Jun 20261,002,734+12.4%
May 2026840,165+17.2%
Apr 2026890,861+5.7%
Mar 2026752,520−3.3%
Feb 2026824,323+2.9%
Jan 2026812,000−12.1%
Dec 2025791,588−14.1%
Nov 2025782,249−11.5%
Oct 2025848,424−6.3%
Sep 2025883,053−7.5%
Aug 2025958,355−0.2%
Jul 20251,019,837+8.5%
Jun 2025892,340+7.8%
May 2025716,619−4.8%
Apr 2025842,807+9.4%
Mar 2025778,404+4.7%
Feb 2025801,398+2.6%
Jan 2025924,245+8.0%
Dec 2024921,617+24.1%
Nov 2024884,315+15.9%
Oct 2024905,026+24.7%

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