San Pedro Bay Ports — Monthly Container Volume
Combined monthly container throughput of the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach — the San Pedro Bay port complex, the largest container gateway in the United States — in TEUs.
CK estimateCK forecastExponential smoothing, damped trend, 6 months, 80% range of backtest errorsSources & methods
- Sources
- Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach, summed by CK Economics
- Period covered
- Jan 2004 – Aug 2026
- Source figures as of
- Not recorded
- Geography
- Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach (San Pedro Bay)
- Sector
- Transportation, Maritime Trade & Logistics · Maritime shipping
- Seasonal adjustment
- Not seasonally adjusted
- Transformations
- Los Angeles plus Long Beach, summed by CK Economics. 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 16% smaller than a no-change forecast over the next 3 months, 8% 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.
Key figures
CK estimateTEUs · calculated by CK Economics from Port of Los Angeles Historical TEU Statistics and Port of Long Beach TEUs archive
- Latest · Aug 2026
- 1,875,899
- +0.8% vs a year earlier1
- 12 months to Aug 2026
- 20,311,254
- −2.1% vs prior 12 months2
- 5-year change
- +6.5%
- since Aug 2021, +1.3% a year3
- 10-year change
- +30.3%
- since Aug 2016, +2.7% a year3
- Record high
- 1,964,069
- Jul 20254
- Record low
- 731,952
- Feb 20094
- Where the latest ranks
- 98th pct.
- Higher than 98% of the other 271 observations since Jan 20045
- CK forecast · Feb 2027
- 1,510,000
- 80% range 1,290,000–1,800,0006
- 1Latest observation against the observation one year earlier (for weekly data, the nearest within three days).
- 2Sum of the latest 12 consecutive months against the sum of the 12 months before them.
- 3Latest observation against the observation five and ten years earlier; the yearly rate is the compound annual growth rate over the span.
- 4Highest and lowest published observations across the full history shown.
- 5Share of the other published observations that are lower than the latest one, rounded down.
- 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 estimateEach 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.
Methodology
Sum of the Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach monthly total TEUs (including empties) for months published by both ports. A TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) is the standard measure of container volume; one 40-foot container is 2 TEUs. Starts January 2004, the first year the Long Beach monthly archive reconciles with its annual totals. 2009 uses Long Beach's monthly figures as originally reported (its later revised annual total is 1.5% lower). See the individual port datasets for sources and notes. 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.
Source
CK Economics calculation from Port of Los Angeles Historical TEU Statistics and Port of Long Beach TEUs archive (see the individual port datasets).
The 6 projected periods are a CK forecast, not figures from the source; the methodology above describes how they are made.
All data
| Period | Value | Change y/y |
|---|---|---|
| Aug 2026 | 1,875,899 | +0.8% |
| Jul 2026 | 1,888,972 | −3.8% |
| Jun 2026 | 1,782,065 | +11.6% |
| May 2026 | 1,682,195 | +24.1% |
| Apr 2026 | 1,708,853 | −0.1% |
| Mar 2026 | 1,527,455 | −4.3% |
| Feb 2026 | 1,591,848 | +1.6% |
| Jan 2026 | 1,659,765 | −11.6% |
| Dec 2025 | 1,625,707 | −8.8% |
| Nov 2025 | 1,599,810 | −9.5% |
| Oct 2025 | 1,688,095 | −10.8% |
| Sep 2025 | 1,680,590 | −5.8% |
| Aug 2025 | 1,860,201 | −0.8% |
| Jul 2025 | 1,964,069 | +7.8% |
| Jun 2025 | 1,596,743 | −4.4% |
| May 2025 | 1,355,779 | −6.4% |
| Apr 2025 | 1,710,300 | +12.5% |
| Mar 2025 | 1,595,861 | +14.2% |
| Feb 2025 | 1,566,783 | +7.6% |
| Jan 2025 | 1,876,978 | +22.7% |
| Dec 2024 | 1,782,623 | +22.7% |
| Nov 2024 | 1,768,469 | +18.3% |
| Oct 2024 | 1,892,217 | +27.8% |
| Sep 2024 | 1,784,205 | +13.1% |