Spanish ports ranked by container traffic in 2015: the year in review

Spanish ports handled 14.3 million TEU in 2015, 0.6% more than in 2014 (86,756 TEU more). These are the final figures from Puertos del Estado’s statistical yearbook for the 28 port authorities.

The high point of the 2012–2025 series is 2025, with 18.6 million TEU: 2015 was 23.3% below it and ranks 11th of the 14 years with data. At the end of 2015 it was the highest figure in the series, which starts in 2012; it was later exceeded in 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024 and 2025.

In the 2015 ranking, the ports moving up on 2014 are Valencia (from 2nd to 1st), Vigo (from 8th to 7th) and Alicante (from 11th to 10th); those moving down are Bahía de Algeciras (from 1st to 2nd) and Castellón (from 7th to 8th).

Transhipment TEU: 7.43 million TEU in 2015, 2.4% less than in 2014. Bahía de Algeciras ranks first on this measure, with 4.14 million TEU.

Valencia ranks first among port authorities with 4.62 million TEU in 2015 (3.9% more than in 2014). It is followed by Bahía de Algeciras (4.52 million) and Barcelona (1.97 million). Together, the three account for 77.6% of the total.

The largest increases were recorded by Vigo (+9.6%), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (+6.1%) and Castellón (+3.9%); the steepest falls by Las Palmas (−7.8%), Bahía de Algeciras (−0.9%) and Bilbao (−0.6%). The comparison is limited to port authorities that account for at least 1% of the total, so that an extreme swing at a small player does not distort the picture.

The rest of the top ten are Las Palmas (4th, 901,101 TEU, −7.8%), Bilbao (5th, 627,302 TEU, −0.6%), Santa Cruz de Tenerife (6th, 345,457 TEU, +6.1%), Vigo (7th, 223,699 TEU, +9.6%), Castellón (8th, 214,663 TEU, +3.9%), Sevilla (9th, 161,671 TEU, 0.0%) and Alicante (10th, 133,880 TEU, −3.9%).

At the bottom of the table are Ferrol-San Cibrao (958 TEU), Motril (183 TEU) and A Coruña (152 TEU), out of a total of 28 port authorities with data.

The distribution is highly concentrated: the top five account for 88.3% of the total and 4 port authorities are enough to reach 80%, while the other 18 port authorities further down share the remaining 4.1%. 14 of the 27 port authorities with a comparison grew compared with 2014, 7 of them by double digits, and 13 fell.

Of the 12 months of 2015 with data, 8 are above the same month of 2014 and 4 below; over the last three months (October, November, December) the figure is up 3.9% on the same months of 2014; the largest year-on-year difference was in December (up 7.8%); the highest point in the series was July, at 1.25 M, and the lowest February, at 1.04 M.

Between 2012 and 2015 the figure went from 14.1 M to 14.3 M, an increase of 1.5% over 3 years (+0.5% a year on average); the last year is the high point of the series and the low was 2013 (13.9 M).

The TEU (twenty-foot equivalent unit) is the standard measure of container traffic. Puertos del Estado counts every container handled, full and empty, and separates import and export boxes, domestic cabotage and transhipment containers, which arrive on one ship and leave on another without entering Spain. In Algeciras and Valencia transhipment makes up more than half of the total.

Puertos del Estado. To explore the data in detail, use PortStats · containers or see the original source.