Ship queue
Near normalLA/Long Beach ships awaiting berth
Container ships waiting offshore for a berth to open at LA/Long Beach, weekly, from MARAD and the Marine Exchange
Data through week of Oct 19, 2026 · source last checked Oct 24, 2026 · page revised Oct 22, 2026
Cite
- Ships awaiting berth
About this data
- Source
- MARAD and the Marine Exchange, via BTS Supply Chain and Freight Indicators
- Series
- Container ships awaiting berth
- Basis
- Queue count, not a dwell time
- Geography
- LA/Long Beach
- Unit
- vessels
- Calculation
- Weekly reading
- Last observation
- week of Oct 19, 2026
- Update frequency
- Weekly
Ships awaiting berth at LA/Long Beach is 2 ships as of week of Oct 19, 2026, near its trailing-12-month normal of 1 ship. This is a ship QUEUE, not a dwell time. Well below the 2021 to 2023 congestion era, when the queue ran into the dozens.
Ships awaiting berth at LA/Long Beach is 2 ships as of the week of Oct 19, down 1 from the prior week. The queue runs near its trailing-12-month normal of 1 ship, well below the 2021 to 2023 congestion peak when the queue ran into the dozens.
| Period | Current | Prior | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Week over week | 2 ships | 3 ships | -33.3% |
| Month over month | 2 ships | 2 ships | 0.0% |
| Year over year | 2 ships | n/a | n/a |
| vs 4-yr median | 2 ships | 5 ships | -55.6% |
Previous weeks
Week of Oct 13, 2026
Ships awaiting berth at LA/Long Beach stand at 3 this week, above the trailing-12-month normal of 1 ship, per MARAD and the Marine Exchange. The count is 45% below the four-year median. The import-friction read holds at Some pressure. The truck planning-time index (2.26, BTS) is running below its trailing-12-month normal of 4.07, so ship-side pressure is not matched on the drayage side.
Week of Oct 6, 2026
Ships awaiting berth at LA/Long Beach is 0 ships as of the week of Oct 5, 2026, down from 1 ship a month ago. The queue runs below its trailing-12-month normal of 1 ship.
Week of Sep 22, 2026
Ships awaiting berth at LA/Long Beach stood at 2 ships as of the week of Sep 21, easing 1 vessel week over week but up 1 year over year. The queue remains near its trailing-12-month normal of 1 ship, well below the dozens that stacked in the 2021 to 2023 congestion era.
Week of Sep 15, 2026
Ships awaiting berth at LA/Long Beach reached 3 ships as of the week of Sep 14, above the trailing-12-month normal of 1 ship. The queue sits above the 5-year median of 2 ships but remains modest by the standards of 2021 to 2023, when dozens of vessels waited offshore.
About LA/Long Beach ships awaiting berth
This page tracks the number of container ships waiting offshore for a berth to open at LA/Long Beach. It is a queue, a count of ships, and it is not a dwell time: a vessel in the queue has not yet reached a berth. The count comes from MARAD and the Marine Exchange and updates weekly, so it is the most current congestion signal on the site. A rising queue is an early warning that boxes will start to sit; an empty queue is shown as zero ships, never as a zero dwell.