Global port congestion eased slightly in the two weeks ending September 20, yet the CONGESTED band still gained 7 ports, and among the key ports tracked in detail, most of the new entries are European and Mediterranean gateways. If your cargo routes through Valencia, Wilhelmshaven, Vado Ligure or Salalah, the improved headline does not describe your lane.

The Global Picture

The Tradlinx Port Flow Score (TPFS) composite reads 45.5 out of 100, in the BUSY band, and the report rates it an improvement on the prior two weeks (Aug 25 – Sep 7). Median berthing delay is 8.6 hours.

Across the 695 ports with recorded vessel traffic, 148 are CONGESTED (21.3%) and 127 BUSY (18.3%). Movement ran toward both ends of the scale: LOW gained 10 ports and CONGESTED gained 7, while STABLE lost 11 and BUSY lost 6. Net, the combined BUSY and CONGESTED group grew by a single port, to 275.

A lower composite alongside a larger CONGESTED count means the headline and the tail moved in opposite directions, so this edition’s exposure shows up at port level. Over the last 3 days, 210 ports ran below their two-week average and 126 ran above it.

The top 20 ports by throughput read 48.6, 3.1 points above the all-port index. The highest-volume gateways still carry more congestion than the network as a whole.

Regional Breakdown: Southeast Asia Scores Highest, West Africa Waits Longest

Composite score and delay depth again point to different regions.

Southeast Asia holds the highest regional composite at 59.4, with 42 of its 66 active ports (64%) rated BUSY or CONGESTED and a 10.0-hour median delay.

Mediterranean (57.9) and South Asia & Middle East (57.6) follow closely. The Mediterranean counts 29 BUSY and 21 CONGESTED ports out of 107 at a 9.9-hour median, and five of this edition’s ten band escalations are Mediterranean ports. South Asia & Middle East has 14 of 53 ports CONGESTED at 7.8 hours.

West Africa carries the deepest median delay at 27.9 hours, with 14 of its 26 active ports CONGESTED. East Africa & Indian Ocean follows at 22.2 hours (10 of 21 CONGESTED), and Russia / CIS sits at 15.7 hours across 14 ports.

Northeast Asia has the largest absolute count of elevated ports, 39 BUSY and 39 CONGESTED out of 160, at a low 5.3-hour median delay.

Northern Europe (18.4, 3.8 hours) and North America (21.6, 4.0 hours) remain the calmest regions. The Northern Europe figure hides two ports heading the other way: Wilhelmshaven at 32.4 hours, and Gothenburg, whose last-3-day reading reached 65.9 hours against a 17.1-hour two-week average.

Top Congested Ports: Vado Ligure Leads, South Manila Waits Longest

Vado Ligure tops the composite ranking at 92.8, with 28.2 hours of berthing delay and a rising trend. Wilhelmshaven (#3) sits close behind at 91.9 and 32.4 hours, with 15 vessels waiting.

Jeddah ranks #2 at 92.1 on a delay of only 7.0 hours. The composite blends congestion grade, berthing delay and queue build-up, so rank and delay hours are separate signals.

South Manila (#4) has the deepest delay among the 89 key ports: 123.7 hours, about 5.2 days, with 24 vessels waiting. Vessels there wait roughly three times as long as their cargo work takes. North Manila adds 35.9 hours.

Tanjung Pelepas (#10) has the longest single-port queue among the key ports, with 90 vessels waiting at an 8.2-hour berthing delay.

Six of the ten are flagged as rising. Four of those six are European or Mediterranean: Vado Ligure, Wilhelmshaven, Izmit and Valencia, which now stands at 43.2 hours.

The Largest Hubs: Shenzhen Easing, Jebel Ali Climbing

Seven of the ten highest-throughput ports are rated BUSY or CONGESTED.

Shenzhen, counted as four terminal codes combined including Yantian and Shekou, remains CONGESTED at 11.5 hours. That is 8.8 hours lower than the prior period, and its last-3-day reading is lower again at 8.7 hours. The combined queue stands at 287 vessels waiting.

Ningbo moved into CONGESTED at 10.7 hours (+3.6 hours, +50%), though its last 3 days ran at 9.1 hours, below the two-week figure.

Jebel Ali is the hub to watch. Rated BUSY at 16.7 hours, it is up 9.9 hours (+145%), and each shorter window reads higher than the one before it: 12.3 hours over one month, 16.7 over two weeks, 22.6 over one week and 28.9 over the last 3 days. It does not appear on that list: every entry there changed band, and Jebel Ali stayed BUSY.

Shanghai (12.2 hours over 3 days against 8.8 over two weeks) and Singapore (11.6 against 9.9) are also running above their two-week averages.

Movers: Seven of Ten Escalations in Europe and the Mediterranean

Worsening: Among ports that moved up a band, Bingazi (Benghazi) posted the largest increase, +33.3 hours to 52.0 hours, from BUSY to CONGESTED. Valencia (+17.9h), Wilhelmshaven (+12.2h), Vado Ligure (+11.4h), Salalah (+10.6h to 30.8h) and Constanta (+7.5h to 35.3h) made the same move into CONGESTED. Sines (+12.4h to 22.8h), Gothenburg (+7.9h to 17.1h) and Dalian (+6.1h to 13.3h) stepped up from STABLE to BUSY.

Salalah’s short-window reading runs well ahead of its average, at 48.8 hours over the last 3 days against 30.8 over two weeks. Colombo, already CONGESTED, shows the same pattern at 58.3 hours against 46.5.

Easing: Among ports that moved down a band, Qinzhou shed the most delay (−7.4h), dropping from STABLE to LOW. Bremerhaven (−6.6h, now 2.0 hours) and Antwerp (−2.5h) also reached LOW, along with Qingdao and Tianjin. Hong Kong, Suzhou (Taicang) and Trieste stepped down from CONGESTED to BUSY, and Piraeus eased from BUSY to STABLE.

Early warning: Among ports still rated LOW or STABLE, Brisbane rose fastest, from 2.8 to 10.0 hours (+257%), with a last-3-day reading of 33.9 hours. Rotterdam (+38% to 12.7 hours) and the Los Angeles and Long Beach pair (+24% to 9.7 hours each) are the larger gateways on that list.

Three-day readings swing on a handful of vessel calls; Guangzhou’s, for example, reads 0.0 hours this edition. They are most useful for deciding which ports to check more often.

Explore the Full Interactive Report

This post covers the highlights. The full report includes a global map of the 89 key ports, the top-hub view with delay trends across four time windows, the composite congestion ranking, worsened and improved movers, pre-berth waiting times, a severe-bottleneck view and an early-warning list of LOW and STABLE ports with fast-rising delay.

View the full Port Congestion Index report →

The PCI report is published biweekly, drawing on Port Congestion API coverage of 1,253 ports worldwide. This edition includes 695 active ports in the global index, with detailed port-level analysis across 89 key ports.

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The Tradlinx Port Congestion Index is derived from the Port Congestion API. Methodology is informed by UNCTAD port-performance indicators, queue theory (Lq/L) and Tradlinx proprietary thresholds. Distribution shares are calculated across ports with recorded vessel traffic in the period (695 of 1,253 monitored), and the headline delay figure is a median. Period-over-period changes are the report’s own comparison against Aug 25 – Sep 7, 2026. Port-level trend readings use 3-day, 1-week, 2-week and 1-month moving averages. Data as of September 20, 2026.

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