Short-sea shipping in Europe is developing slowly but growing steadily. Global and internal upheavals are not fundamentally altering its structure or dynamics. The latest Eurostat report indicates that between 2023 and 2024, short-sea shipping grew by 1.9%, accounting for 58.3% of total maritime freight transport to and from major EU ports. Calls to shift road freight to ships have not translated into active measures by transport operators. Despite driver shortages, short-sea shipping is not capturing road freight volumes. Similarly, rail transport is not losing significant cargo to maritime shipping.

This trend is particularly evident in container transport. Eurostat analysts note that 2024 saw record levels of short-sea container shipping at major EU ports. In terms of TEU volume, short-sea container shipping at major EU ports peaked at 36.4 million TEU in 2024. This represents an 8.9% increase compared to 2023. The volume of loaded containers rose by 8.2% (to 29.0 million TEU) year-on-year, while the transport of empty containers increased by 11.8% (to 7.4 million TEU). This trend essentially repeated itself in 2025 and 2026, although geopolitical turmoil in the Persian Gulf made itself felt in 2026. This resulted in varied fluctuations in container supply at container terminals during the first half of 2026.

Short-sea container shipping in Europe. Source: Eurostat

Short-sea container shipping

Total container throughput at the three largest EU ports fell by 1.5% in the first half of 2026, reports Prof. Theo Notteboom in *Port Economics*. Container terminals at the Port of Hamburg recorded solid year-on-year growth of 7.3%. However, container volumes did not maintain this same momentum throughout the first half of 2026.

Markets served by the hinterlands of the Rotterdam and Antwerp-Bruges terminal complexes proved relatively resilient to geopolitical shocks. Consequently, they were less affected by the slowdown in liner shipping volumes.

Short-sea shipping in 2026 is expected to benefit from the European economy’s continued reliance on supplies from Asia. Short-sea shipping in Europe stands to gain, assuming that supply patterns on feeder routes mirror activity on global routes—an area where several ports in the top fifteen container rankings achieved significant growth.

Prof. Theo Notteboom highlights the Port of Gdańsk as the leader, with impressive growth of 23%, noting that this is “driven largely by the scaling up of operations at the new Baltic Hub terminal.” The Port of Gioia Tauro also returned to a growth trajectory in 2026. Significant increases were also recorded by the French port complex HAROPA and the Port of Marseille.

Container handling trends in EU ports. Source: Prof. Theo Notteboom, “Mixed growth performance among the top 15 EU container ports in the first half of 2026,” *Port Economics*.

HAROPA PORT’s performance is driven by terminals located along the Seine axis. The Port of Le Havre serves as the main seaport within this cluster; acting as the gateway to Paris, it is crucial for international trade. The Port of Rouen is a combined river-sea port. The inland ports grouped under “Ports de Paris” form a network serving the Paris metropolitan area.

HAROPA is an acronym formed from the initial letters of the cities where these ports are located: Le Havre, Rouen, and Paris. Notteboom projects that HAROPA will maintain its position in the top ten, while Marseille—despite strong results—remains just outside the top fifteen.

80% of containers loaded with cargo

In EU trade, loaded containers accounted for 79.8% of all containers transported via short-sea shipping (in TEU) in 2024, according to Eurostat. Across all reporting countries, the volume of loaded containers transported exceeded that of empty ones. The highest share of loaded containers was recorded in Malta (97.9%), followed by Italy (91.7%), while the lowest was in Cyprus (60.8%).

Although Italy is not the leader in global cargo handling volumes, it makes the most effective use of short-sea shipping. Eurostat reports that “In 2024, Italy was the leading EU country in terms of the volume of short-sea container shipping, reaching a total of 9.1 million TEU. It was followed by Spain (6.6 million TEU) and Germany (5.1 million TEU).”

Global shifts in liner shipping connections were already making themselves felt in 2024. Compared to the previous year, a reduction in container volumes on short-sea shipping routes was recorded in only 4 of the 22 EU maritime states. The sharpest decline occurred in Malta (-14.3%), followed by ports in Sweden (-4.3%), Italy (-1.4%), and Romania (-1.0%).

Conversely, significant growth in short-sea container shipping (in TEU) compared to 2023 was recorded by: Denmark (+45.5%), Spain (+21.7%), Slovenia (+19.2%), Estonia (+18.2%), Latvia (+17.4%), Germany (+14.8%), Belgium (+12.6%), Portugal (+11.9%), Ireland (+10.5%), and Greece (+10.0%) – according to Eurostat.

Short-sea shipping cargo volumes in Europe. Source: Eurostat

This trend continued into 2025–2026. “In Spain, Valencia struggled to maintain the growth rate seen in previous years,” notes Notteboom. Ports located near the Atlantic benefited from the restricted traffic in the Suez Canal.

Algeciras, Barcelona, ​​and Las Palmas recorded a marked increase in container volumes and strengthened their position in the transshipment market. Container terminals in Genoa moved up one spot in 2025, driven by a rise in container handling growth from 2.9% in 2024 to 6.3% in 2025.

However, the first half of the year saw a 2.7% drop in container handling, which, according to the University of Antwerp professor, “will likely result in a loss of two places in the current rankings. Similarly, the port of Piraeus recorded negative results and is projected to fall to eighth place.”

Tonnage in short-sea shipping

Italy utilizes short-sea shipping to transport all types of cargo, including bulk goods. This made it the EU’s leading country for short-sea shipping in 2024, with a volume of 304 million tonnes. According to Eurostat, this gave Italian ports a 15.6% share of the total tonnage for this type of transport within the EU. The Netherlands (239 million tonnes) and Spain (221 million tonnes) took the next spots.

The share of short-sea shipping in maritime trade varies significantly by country. Short-sea shipping clearly dominates in Estonia, Cyprus, Finland, Sweden, Ireland, Malta, and Denmark. It also plays a significant role in Lithuania, Greece, Italy, Poland, Bulgaria, Latvia, and Croatia.

For obvious reasons, it is also highly important for Norway (an EFTA country) and for candidate countries—Montenegro and Turkey. In these countries, the share of short-sea shipping at major ports exceeded 70%. However, ports in only a few countries are the primary beneficiaries of having hub ports. Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain accounted for 39.2% of the EU’s short-sea maritime transport in 2024.

More than half of the EU countries (out of the 22 included in the statistical analysis) recorded an increase in goods transported via short-sea shipping. Lithuania saw the largest relative increase (+12.9% between 2023 and 2024), followed by Portugal (+8.8%) and Slovenia (+7.3%). Conversely, the largest relative declines in this sector were recorded by Malta (-39.1%), Croatia (-9.1%), and Romania (-6.3%). Montenegro—an EU candidate country—also recorded a significant decline of 9.6%, Eurostat reports.

Structure of short-sea shipping markets in Europe. Source: Eurostat

Goods in TEUs

Short-sea shipping accounts for a significant volume of goods transport. Inward shipments to seaports represented 57.8% of the total tonnage of goods handled at EU ports during the period under review. In most EU countries, the volume of goods unloaded from vessels exceeded the volume loaded. In the context of container transport, this indicates the European Union economies’ growing reliance on imports of components for industrial production and an increasing dependency of consumer markets.

Increased economic activity and the emergence of a new generation of container ports are to be expected. Prof. Theo Notteboom includes among these “ports such as Gdańsk, Sines, Klaipėda, Wilhelmshaven, and Gdynia, which only crossed the one-million TEU threshold in the 2010s or early 2020s.”

The share of these ports “reflects the changing geography of European trade and the effects of shipping network restructuring.” According to the professor, “Gdańsk stands out in particular as one of the fastest-growing ports of recent decades. Gdańsk is expected to surpass the three-million TEU mark this year.”

It is worth noting that, as early as 2024, the highest shares of unloaded goods were recorded in Malta, Cyprus, and Poland. Eurostat reports that “they accounted for 90.3%, 82.6%, and 70.1%, respectively, of the total tonnage of short-sea shipping goods handled in the ports of these countries.” These figures could be approached in 2026 in the case of containerized cargo shipments.