Busan handled a record 24.88 million TEU in 2025 — a third consecutive annual record — with transshipment up 4.4% to 14.1 million TEU, 57% of everything the port moves. Cruise is booming in parallel: more than 420 calls and roughly 800,000 passengers are expected in 2026.
The 2025 result: 24.88 million TEU, up 2.0%, with import-export boxes down 1.1% but transshipment up 4.4% to 14.1 million — foreign carriers move about 80% of that relay cargo. China supplies 25% of import-export volume, the US 17%, Japan 11%. The port runs 179 weekly services to more than 500 ports in 150 countries, carries 96.8% of Korea's transshipment and 76.6% of its containers, and ranks seventh among world container ports.
Productivity bets keep landing: Korea's first fully automated terminal opened at the New Port in April 2024, the TSS truck-booking platform cut gate waiting by more than half, and alliance reshuffles — Gemini routing North China cargo via Busan, Premier following — pushed the 2026 target to 25.4 million TEU.
The long bet is a ~$10 billion expansion to 35–40 million TEU of capacity by 2045, which would make Busan the world's largest container port; the New Port already carries 73.2% of volume against the North Port's 26.7%.
On the passenger side, Busan became the first Korean port to run maritime terminals around the clock for overnight cruise calls — Chinese arrivals through the port jumped from 2,652 in May 2025 to 26,556 in May 2026. Two terminals work the trade: the International Passenger Terminal in Dong-gu, a ten-minute walk from Busan Station with a 360 m berth for 100,000-tonne ships, and the Yeongdo terminal across the harbour.
Our read: the container numbers matter to travellers because they explain the city — the cranes on the horizon are why Busan has direct flights to 42 cities and a restaurant scene priced for shipowners. For cruisers, this is the easiest Korean call: walk off the ship, over the bridge, onto the metro. One warning for 2026: the overnight-call experiment means some weekends the old town is genuinely full.
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