Imports Surge Puts L.A., Long Beach Ports Back on Top

The ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach have reclaimed their title as the busiest shipping hub in the U.S. with a record surge in import volume in July.

The Port of Los Angeles handled 940K TEUs in July, a 37% increase from the previous year and the port’s busiest month since the all-time peak of activity in May 2021, during the pandemic’s supply-chain crunch.

The Port of Long Beach saw a 53% increase year-over-year in July to 882K TEUs, breaking its 2022 record for import volumes in July, according to Chamber of Shipping data.

The Los Angeles and Long Beach ports, together known as the San Pedro Bay complex, now account for more than 30% of all U.S. container imports (TEUs, twenty-foot equivalent units), with the current surge reclaiming market share lost to the East Coast in the past two years.

From 2007 to 2024, total TEU activity at San Pedro Bay has historically correlated to up to 28% of the total leased square footage annually in the Greater Los Angeles, Orange County and Inland Empire regional industrial market, according to CBRE data.

Demand for the San Pedro Bay port complex now is being driven by retailers and other importers stocking up ahead of U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods, as well as the usual frenzy of pre-holiday ordering. Ocean freight also is shifting to the West Coast as a Sept. 30 deadline looms over contract talks for East Coast and Gulf Coast dockworkers, Bloomberg reported.

In a report on San Pedro Bay calling the port complex The Driver of the SoCal Industrial Market, CBRE this year projected that robust shipping activity at the complex will continue to spur the regional industrial market.

“The influx of imported goods in Southern California necessitates nearby storage space for retail, distribution and logistics companies,” the report said.

However, the report noted that third-party logistics providers throughout Greater Los Angeles and the Inland Empire have excess capacity in existing warehouses left over from the pandemic surge.

“While that space will need to be absorbed before witnessing tighter vacancy rates and rising rents, the long-term fundamentals remain sound and optimistic,” CBRE said.

The surge in imports helped the Inland Empire’s industrial market rebound in the second quarter, with overall positive absorption and increased activity countering falling rates and rising vacancy.

Positive net absorption in the two-county market, which stretches from the city limits of Los Angeles to the Arizona border, totaled 3.8M SF—a swing of nearly 5M SF from the negative Q1 total of minus 964K SF, CBRE reported.

“Companies are diverting freight to West Coast ports as a hedge against domestic and international concerns,” the report said.