U.S. port congestion data: the plain-English congestion board for importers.
The ship queue, the truck planning-time index and the monthly TEU volumes at the big US gateways, plus one rules-based import-friction read per complex, from the public record. Container (box) dwell, the number the trade means by dwell, has no structured national feed, but the Port of Los Angeles posts a daily import-container dwell-age report we collect, the weekly ship queue is the freshest congestion signal, and every dwell number is labeled with its exact clock. One brief a week. No forecasts, no routing calls.
Data through Sep 15, 2026 · updated Sep 15, 2026
Latest issue · Sep 15, 2026
Gulf Coast Anchor Count Doubles to 2, US Queue Flat at 10
All three tracked complexes at Flowing. Gulf Coast ships at anchor doubled week over week to 2, still 50% below its five-year median. The US ships-awaiting-berth total holds flat at 10 ships, 70% below the five-year median.
Read the brief →Furthest above normal
The import-friction board →The data
Friction board
The hero: one plain read per port complex, flowing, some pressure, or congested, built by a fixed rule from where its ship queue, truck planning-time index and loaded-import TEU sit against their trailing-12-month normal.
1 pagePort complexes
The complex hub pages: the import-friction read at LA/Long Beach, NY/NJ and Savannah and the live metrics behind each, the ship queue, the truck planning-time index, and loaded-import TEU, in one place.
3 pagesShip queue
Container ships awaiting berth, the count of ships waiting offshore for a berth to open, weekly from MARAD and the Marine Exchange. This is a queue, not a dwell time, and it is the most current congestion signal on the site.
3 pagesAt anchor
Container ships at anchor off the East, Gulf and West Coast ports, weekly. The coast-wide anchorage count — related to but broader than a single complex's berth queue, and the widest early-warning lens the public record carries.
4 pagesTruck index
The truck planning-time index around each complex, the FHWA measure of how much longer a drayage trip takes than free-flow. The truck-side congestion signal, monthly.
2 pagesContainer volume
Monthly container volume by port in TEU, split into loaded imports, loaded exports and empties, with the month-over-month, year-over-year and versus-2019 reads. Loaded imports are the import-demand signal.
9 pagesBusiest ports
The tracked US container ports ranked by loaded-import volume, year to date and latest month, in TEU. One canonical ranking, updated in place — the import-demand read, not a congestion reading.
1 pageEmpty share
The empty-container share of monthly box volume at each tracked US port: repositioned empties as a share of loaded imports, loaded exports and empties. A trade-imbalance and equipment-flow read, never a congestion signal.
1 pageVessel dwell
The classic pandemic-era congestion number: the national average time a container ship sat at a US berth, AIS-derived, in hours. BTS reported it through mid-2023; this is a labeled historical page, never a current reading.
1 pageLA box dwell
The Port of Los Angeles daily import-container inventory, split by dwell age (0-4, 5-8 and 9-plus days). The one genuinely public box-dwell read: a daily inventory-age distribution, never an average dwell time or vessel dwell.
1 pageWhy congestion is moving
Why US port congestion is rising or easing right now, updated every week the data moves.
2 pages