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Maritime shipping

Port of Oakland — Monthly Container Volume

Monthly container throughput at the Port of Oakland, Northern California's main container gateway, in TEUs including full imports, full exports and empty containers.

Data status: Current
Official statisticCK forecastSource figures as of October 14, 2026 · Exponential smoothing, damped trend, 1 year, 80% range of backtest errorsSources & methods
Sources
Port of Oakland
Period covered
Jan 1998 – Sep 2026
Source figures as of
October 14, 2026
Geography
Port of Oakland, 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
1 year
Interval
80% range of backtest errors
Backtest
Errors 16% smaller than a no-change forecast over the next 3 months, 6% smaller than repeating the same period a year earlier 6 months to 1 year 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 Oakland data

Latest · Sep 2026
188,517
+5.4% vs a year earlier1
12 months to Sep 2026
2,193,698
−3.6% vs prior 12 months2
5-year change
+2.9%
since Sep 2021, +0.6% a year3
10-year change
+0.5%
since Sep 2016, +0.1% a year3
Record high
241,467
Mar 20214
Record low
113,716
Jan 19984
Where the latest ranks
50th pct.
Higher than 50% of the other 344 observations since Jan 19985
CK forecast · Sep 2027
181,000
80% range 157,000–201,0006
  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 Oakland, including empty containers. A TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) is the standard measure of container volume; one 40-foot container is 2 TEUs. January 2015–December 2021 from the port's historical Excel file; January 2022 onward from its current statistics PDF (the newer source where they overlap, reflecting the port's revisions to July and August 2023). The source stores some values with fractional TEUs; whole numbers as displayed by the port are used, so annual sums can differ from published annual totals by 1–2 TEU. All 140 months were verified field-by-field against the official files and cross-checked against port press releases. 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 Oakland, Facts & Figures — monthly TEU statistics (Excel 1998–2023; PDF 2022–2026): https://www.oaklandseaport.com/business/facts-figures — figures as published on 14 October 2026.

The 12 projected periods are a CK forecast, not figures from the source; the methodology above describes how they are made.

All data

345 observations, newest first · TEUs

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PeriodValueChange y/y
Sep 2026188,517+5.4%
Aug 2026173,818−9.6%
Jul 2026179,999−11.4%
Jun 2026181,356+7.7%
May 2026190,958+1.9%
Apr 2026184,492−0.5%
Mar 2026198,667−8.6%
Feb 2026163,255−14.5%
Jan 2026195,938+1.4%
Dec 2025179,580−1.7%
Nov 2025174,239−4.1%
Oct 2025182,879−5.5%
Sep 2025178,942−6.6%
Aug 2025192,313−0.3%
Jul 2025203,147+10.1%
Jun 2025168,460−12.8%
May 2025187,389−0.3%
Apr 2025185,499−1.7%
Mar 2025217,417+7.2%
Feb 2025190,937+4.5%
Jan 2025193,175+7.0%
Dec 2024182,646+3.8%
Nov 2024181,721+9.2%
Oct 2024193,577+8.4%

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