Feature, Freight News, Sea


Belfast trade heads for record

[ February 10, 2026   //   ]

Trade through Belfast Harbour pushed up towards record levels in 2025, with across the board increases in goods transported by all shipping modes.

In its annual trade figures published on 10 February, Belfast Harbour reported 24.3 million tonnes of goods passing through the Trust Port in 2025, up from 24.1 million tonnes the year before.

It was a record year for ro ro freight traffic handled by Stena Line, with 625,000 freight equivalent units comprising heavy goods vehicles, smaller commercial vehicles and trade cars t. This surpassed the previous record performance of 618,000 delivered in 2024.

Stena Line’s freight traffic is expected to increase as the operator introduces its new larger vessels on its Belfast routes.

Container traffic saw a positive performance, ending the year up 1% on the previous year with 124,118 units handled – a second consecutive year-on-year increase.

In 2025, grain and animal feeds also reached record levels at 2.76 million tonnes, surpassing last year’s previous record of 2.46 million tonnes and indicating the continued strength of the region’s farming and agrifood sector.

It was also a strong year for liquid bulks, with refined oils including petrol and diesel up 6% on the year before. Break bulk volumes were also robust, with steel up 11% to 200,000 tonnes.

Belfast handles more than 70% of the Northern Ireland’s seaborne imports and exports and 25% of sea trade for the island of Ireland. It handles goods valued at £26.7bn every year and enables more than 15% of Northern Ireland’s economic output.

Port director, Michael Robinson, said:“The results for 2025 show that the Port community is continuing to do a great job transporting people and delivering the goods and services that we all rely on, not only in business and industry, but in all aspects of our daily lives.

“Trade through Belfast Harbour has once again been resilient in the face of local and global headwinds and we were proud to keep supporting essential industries such as agrifood throughout the year. We continue to invest in our Port facilities and will this year unveil our 2025-2050 Masterplan, which contains plans for major port expansion and upgrades that will further increase our port trade capacity.

“While we remain vigilant to the challenges facing the economy, we are encouraged by this strong performance across all categories, which once again demonstrates the important role Belfast Harbour plays in keeping the local economy moving.”

Stena Line trade director Irish Sea North, Paul Grant, added:  “Stena Line’s routes from Belfast Harbour continue to be some of the most successful across our network, and we’re delighted to have once again hit a record number of freight units passing through the city. With the recent arrival of our two new freight vessels for our Belfast – Heysham service, Stena Futura and Stena Connecta, we expect that this growth will continue with increased capacity to meet continued high demand.”

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