IN Brief:
- Valenciaport handled 498,837 TEUs and 6.6 million tonnes of cargo in September, rises of 5.48% and 2.05%.
- Loaded container imports increased 11.68% and exports 5.68%, while September full-container transit declined 0.82%.
- January–September throughput remained 0.91% below 2025, with transhipment down 9.81% across that period.
Valenciaport handled 498,837 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in September 2026, an increase of 5.48% against the same month last year. The ports of Valencia, Sagunto and Gandia also handled 6.6 million tonnes of cargo, up 2.05%, as loaded import and export container movements strengthened despite weaker cumulative transhipment figures.
The port authority recorded an 11.68% increase in loaded container imports and a 5.68% rise in loaded exports for September. Its traffic figures measure container capacity in TEUs — one standard 20-foot box counts as one TEU and a 40-foot box as two — rather than the number of individual containers or the weight of their contents. Empty equipment can contribute to total TEUs without contributing an equivalent weight of cargo.
Full-container transit, or transhipment, involved 179,002 containers in September, 0.82% fewer than a year earlier. That monthly decline was substantially smaller than the nine-month fall, but the improvement does not establish that every segment of the port’s container business has returned to growth. Gateway imports, gateway exports and transit movements follow different physical routes through terminals.
Loaded gateway imports normally require discharge, terminal release and an inland movement after the necessary customs processes; exports require equipment collection, inland loading and delivery before the vessel cut-off. Transhipped boxes instead transfer between vessel services without an ordinary domestic delivery. Crane utilisation and yard storage can be affected across all three movements, whereas the demand placed on local hauliers and rail links differs.
Over January–September, total throughput reached approximately 4.2 million TEUs, a 0.91% year-on-year decrease, alongside 59.2 million tonnes of cargo, down 2.13%. The latest rolling 12-month figures show 5,623,753 TEUs, broadly unchanged from the preceding period, and 78.7 million tonnes, 1.56% lower. Monthly, calendar-year-to-date and rolling-year measures cover different intervals and cannot be substituted for one another when assessing a change in demand.
The difference between gateway traffic and transfers is pronounced in the nine-month figures. Loaded imports increased 10.02% to 856,431 TEUs and loaded exports edged up 0.31% to 681,113 TEUs, while full-container transhipment fell 9.81% to 1,552,065 containers. The stronger September export reading therefore sits within a period of much slower cumulative export growth, and higher imports have not offset every reduction in transhipment.
On a rolling annual comparison, the contrast is similarly evident. Loaded export containers increased 3.88% to 921,642 TEUs, while loaded imports climbed 13.69% to 1,129,805 TEUs. Full-container transit volumes remained down 10.66%. The figures cover different reporting periods from the September monthly total and should not be combined into a single growth calculation.
China remained Valenciaport’s largest international market for container traffic in the first nine months, accounting for 714,691 TEUs, up 15.07%. The United States accounted for 246,237 TEUs, down 14.71%, followed by Algeria at 225,257, down 7.22%, and Turkey at 142,081, down 18.98%. These comparisons describe containers passing through Valenciaport by trading market, not the value of the traded goods or a direct measurement of industrial production.
Cargo tonnage movements diverged from the container totals. Cargo traded with China reached 7.66 million tonnes, up 15.75%, while Italy was the second-largest international market by cargo weight at 4.53 million tonnes, down 12.53%. Weight and TEU counts describe different characteristics of the freight moving through the port; a change in the mix of loaded, empty, light and heavy containers can separate those measures even when shipping activity is growing.
Growth elsewhere in the cargo mix remained uneven. The port authority recorded year-to-date increases of 4.58% in solid bulk, 0.85% in liquid bulk and 2.40% in non-containerised general cargo. Containerised cargo tonnage was 3.80% lower. Tonnage and TEU totals can move in opposite directions when the proportion of empty equipment changes or when the average weight of laden cargo shifts.
Freight vehicles carried on regular services reached 404,543 units over the first nine months, an 8.77% increase, providing another measure of activity beyond container handling. The next monthly port returns will establish whether September’s improvement in loaded imports and exports continues, while the nine-month figures still show weaker transhipment and overall container throughput.
