Port of Oakland — Monthly Loaded Import-to-Export Ratio

Methodology

Each value is the month's full (loaded) import TEUs divided by its full export TEUs, rounded to three decimals. A ratio below 1 means more full containers left than arrived. 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. Oakland was an export port for most of its history: the ratio was about 0.6 a year in 1998–2001 and below 1 in every year to 2017 except 2006 (1.04). Full imports have outweighed full exports in every year since 2018, with a high of 1.30 for 2022 and 1.47 in July 2022. The ratio has been about 1.2 a year since 2024, far below the 3 to 4 at Los Angeles. January 1998 to December 2021 come from the port's historical Excel file, and January 2022 onward from its current statistics PDF. The PDF is used where the two overlap, because it reflects the port's revisions to July and August 2023 (up to 30 TEUs per part). Each month's full and empty imports and exports must add up to the port's full, empty and grand totals within 3 TEUs; the port stores some fractional TEUs and shows whole numbers. The sum of each month's parts is within two TEUs of the site's Port of Oakland container volume series. The port can revise recent months.

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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.