Port of Los Angeles — Monthly Loaded Import-to-Export Ratio

Methodology

Each value is the month's loaded import TEUs divided by its loaded export TEUs, rounded to three decimals. A ratio of 3 means three full containers arrived for each full container that left. Empty containers are left out of both sides. A TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) is the standard measure of container volume; one 40-foot container is 2 TEUs. The ratio measures the port's container trade imbalance, not its value: a loaded TEU of imported electronics and one of exported hay count the same. It rose from about 1.5 in 1995 to 3.5 in 2004, eased to about 2.1 by 2010–13 and climbed to 2.7 in 2019. It peaked in the 2021 import surge, at 4.7 for the year and 6.18 in September 2021, and has been between 3.4 and 4 a year since 2023. The port's yearly tables split each month's TEUs into loaded imports, empty imports, loaded exports and empty exports, with import, export and grand totals. Every month from January 1995 is used, and its four parts are checked against the printed total. A few historical cells on the port's pages carry typos. Empty exports for September 1995 read "30,969,80" and are taken as 30,969.80, which matches the export subtotal. The November 2020 total reads "889.,748.15", so the four parts are checked against the import and export subtotals instead. In June 1997, April and November 2002, March 2005, December 2011 and November 2022 a subtotal or part is off by up to 50 TEUs, at most 0.01% of the month. The four parts are used as printed. Their sum matches the port's total-TEU series in every month except November 2002 (50 TEUs over) and March 2005 (0.3 TEUs over). The port can revise recent months.

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 14 October 2026.