Port of Barcelona Records 1.5% Growth Driven by Bulk Cargo

Goods traffic at the Port of Barcelona between January and August of this year totaled 47,530,886 tons, an increase of 1.5% compared to the same period in 2025. Container traffic was 2,533,725 TEUs (-0.1%), practically the same figure as in the first eight months of last year.

The strong performance of bulk liquids stands out, reaching 11.3 million tons (+2.9%) and reflecting excellent results for chemical products, which increased by 53.3%, and biofuels, which grew by 40.7%. Bulk solids reached 2.6 million tons (+2.7%) thanks to increases in potash (+13%), cement and clinker (+11.3%), and soybeans (+9.4%).

Car traffic amounted to 487,970 units, an increase of 4.3% due to growth in imports and transits, and figures similar to 2025 for exports. The strong performance of electric and hybrid vehicles stands out, totaling 90,996 units (+60.3%) and representing 18.65% of the total.

Regarding ro-ro traffic, 302,095 ITUs (Intermodal Transport Units) were moved in the first eight months of 2026, a figure representing a 3% increase.

Between January and August of this year, a total of 4.1 million passenger movements occurred at the Port of Barcelona, 5.1% more than the previous year. Of these, 1,328,958 correspond to ferry passengers, while in the cruise sector, a total of 1.6 million cruise passengers visited the city of Barcelona*.

*Port of Barcelona statistics reflect the number of movements made by cruise ships, following international port standard accounting. However, these data do not reflect the actual number of cruise passengers arriving in the city. For this reason, work has been done with Turisme de Barcelona to implement a new calculation system that allows for the homogenization of cruise passenger data provided by the Port with those provided by the city.