Twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU) container traffic at Mexican ports registered another monthly decline in September 2026, marking two consecutive months of decreases. Although the balance for the January-September period remains positive compared to 2025, growth has slowed compared to last August.
According to statistics from the Secretariat of the Navy (Semar) , the National Port System registered 777,826 TEUs moved in September 2026 , a decrease of 8.3% compared to the 848,641 containers moved in August.
According to an analysis by T21 Business Intelligence , the performance in the ninth month of the year showed a monthly decline in the country’s four main ports.
In the Mexican Pacific, Manzanillo handled 329,942 TEUs during September 2016, representing a 10.6% decrease compared to the 368,883 TEUs handled in the same month of the previous year. Lázaro Cárdenas handled 203,575 TEUs, a 7.9% decline compared to August, when it handled 221,131 TEUs.
On the Gulf of Mexico side , declines were also observed. Veracruz registered a monthly drop of 3.6%, handling 105,618 TEUs in September 2026. Altamira decreased by 9.7% with 72,891 containers moved in the ninth month of the year.
Manzanillo and Lázaro Cárdenas maintain cumulative growth
Between January and September 2026, Mexican ports handled 7,290,474 TEUs , an increase of 2.4% compared to the 7,120,875 recorded during the same period in 2025.
This increase was driven by Manzanillo , which remained the country’s main port in container traffic, with 3,154,781 TEUs in the first nine months of the year, representing a 9.5% increase compared to the same period in 2025. With this result, the port accounted for 43.3% of the total TEUs handled nationwide .
Lázaro Cárdenas ranked second with 2,008,597 TEUs, a 2.9% increase compared to January-September of last year. These two Pacific ports accounted for 70.8% of the country’s container traffic.
In contrast, Veracruz handled 907,802 TEUs, representing a decrease of 5.6%, while Altamira accumulated 651,914 TEUs, 5% less than in the January-September 2025 cycle.
These figures come in a context where Mexican foreign trade continues to strengthen. In August 2016 alone, the country’s exports reached a value of $78.01 billion, an increase of 40.4% year-on-year , according to the National Institute of Statistics and Geography (Inegi) .
The featured image was generated using artificial intelligence.
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