1.42 Million TEUs in One Month: What the Port of LA's Record September Tells Shippers
The headline numbers
- September 2026: 1.42 million TEUs — the port's best single month ever, and the largest monthly volume of any port in the Western Hemisphere, per Executive Director Gene Seroka's media briefing this week.
- Imports: 546,000 loaded TEUs, up 19% year on year and 26% above the five-year average.
- Exports: 126,000 loaded TEUs, up 10%. Empties hit a record 371,000 as carriers rushed equipment back to Asia.
- Quarter: July–September was the strongest in port history at nearly 3 million TEUs; June–September moved close to 4 million. Year-to-date: about 8.1 million TEUs, roughly 3% above 2025.
Where the cargo is coming from
- Vietnam is now the port's second-largest trading partner behind China; Vietnam-origin volume through LA has quadrupled in a decade. Thailand entered the top five for the first time.
- China's share of port business has fallen from 60% to 40% — but Harvard's Willy Shih cautioned that much of the shift is final assembly relocating, not true upstream decoupling. Building Mexico-based supplier networks comparable to China's could take about ten years.
Why cargo is piling into the West Coast
- Lower tariff levels and resilient US consumer demand.
- Diversion from Panama Canal routings (drought constraints) and Suez routing (Middle East conflict pushing fuel costs up); shorter, faster transits are worth more.
- Typhoon-disrupted Asian schedules and pre-holiday "roll pools" in China pushed replenishment cargo into September.
Outlook and the weak link
- Seroka projects about 900,000 TEUs for October. Asian purchase orders remain solid, but November and December are "hard to forecast" — tariffs keep importers making rapid, deadline-driven decisions.
- Operations are smooth for now: healthy truck turns, large vessels turning in about four days. The flagged risk is rail dwell time as holiday volumes move inland.
Takeaways for US-bound shippers
- Volume stays hot — do not wait for a big rate dip before booking Q4 space.
- Keep quote validity short (two weeks or less); tariff-driven order swings will not stop.
- If your cargo needs inland rail, build dwell-time buffer into delivery promises. Peak-season delays this year live in the yards, not on the water.
Yufeng International Logistics runs dedicated US services covering Los Angeles, Long Beach and inland transfers — see the USA routes page.
Sources: Based on FreightWaves, the Port of LA executive director's media briefing and IndexBox.
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