The global container-port hierarchy shifted sharply in the first half of 2026, with China's Ningbo-Zhoushan overtaking Singapore for second place and Malaysia's Port Klang entering the top 10. The most dramatic reversal took place in the Middle East, where Dubai's Jebel Ali plunged from 10th to 32nd place as disruptions from the Iran war around the Strait of Hormuz diverted cargo and forced carriers to redesign their networks. The rankings, tracked by shipping analyst Alphaliner, are a broad barometer of where global trade flows are actually moving — and how quickly conflict and rerouting can redraw a map that normally changes only incrementally.

Shanghai remained the world's busiest container port, handling about 28.7 million container units in the first six months of 2026, a 6.2% increase from the same period a year earlier, according to Alphaliner. Ningbo-Zhoushan handled 22.9 million TEUs, up 8.8%, narrowly passing Singapore, which processed approximately 22.7 million TEUs, up 4.7%. A TEU, or twenty-foot equivalent unit, is the industry's standard measure of container capacity.

The gains come as China finds new markets for its exports despite attempts by the Trump administration to blunt Beijing's economic dominance through trade and tariff policy.

The margin between the two rivals was only 158,310 TEUs, leaving the contest for second place highly vulnerable to normal seasonal swings during the rest of the year. Even so, Ningbo-Zhoushan's first-half performance marked the first time it had ranked ahead of Singapore over a six-month period.

China held six of the top 10 positions. Shenzhen, Qingdao, Guangzhou and Tianjin ranked fourth through seventh, followed by Busan in eighth, the combined Los Angeles-Long Beach U.S. gateway in ninth and Port Klang in 10th.

The latest reshuffling builds on China's strong full-year performance in 2025. Shanghai handled a record 55.06 million TEUs, while Singapore processed 44.66 million and Ningbo-Zhoushan reached 43.87 million. Ningbo's 11.6% growth was the strongest among the three leading ports.

No port experienced a more dramatic reversal than Jebel Ali. The Dubai hub, long the Middle East's main transshipment gateway connecting Asia, Europe and Africa, handled only 3.14 million TEUs in the first half of 2026, less than half the 7.77 million TEUs recorded in the first half of 2025. The decline accelerated in the second quarter, when throughput fell more than 90% year over year to just 374,000 TEUs. As a result, the port dropped from 10th place in the global rankings at the end of 2025 to 32nd in Alphaliner's half-year assessment. Abu Dhabi's Khalifa port also suffered an estimated decline of at least 50% and fell out of the global top 50.

The immediate cause was the disruption surrounding the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow chokepoint through which Gulf shipping must pass. The waterway was nearly closed in March, followed by only a partial and unstable reopening in June. Carriers reduced or altered calls in the Persian Gulf, while shippers sought alternative routes and relay points. Whether Jebel Ali and Khalifa can recover lost volume will depend heavily on how stable that reopening proves in the second half of the year.

The Middle East disruption is part of a broader reorganization of relay traffic — the practice of transferring containers between vessels at intermediate hubs before they reach their final destination. In 2025, cargo moving through transshipment hubs shifted toward southeast Asia as carriers continued to avoid the Red Sea and route more vessels around Africa's Cape of Good Hope. That shift benefited Singapore, Tanjung Pelepas in Malaysia and Colombo, Sri Lanka. Tanjung Pelepas recorded the fastest growth among the leading ports, increasing throughput 14.5%, or nearly 1.8 million TEUs, and rising from 16th to 13th place. Singapore grew 8.6%, while Colombo increased 6.5%.

Alphaliner estimated that throughput at the world's leading container ports rose 5.2% in 2025, compared with 4.7% growth in the broader container trade. The difference reflected rerouting, network disruption and additional handling as cargo was transferred through different hubs — meaning some of the measured growth reflects the same boxes being counted at more than one port rather than a rise in underlying trade.

Other ports also advanced in the first half of 2026. Colombo climbed from 26th to 20th, India's Nhava Sheva rose from 28th to 21st and Jakarta, Indonesia moved from 27th to 23rd. By contrast, Germany's Hamburg slipped from 23rd to 27th, Kaohsiung of South Korea fell from 22nd to 24th and India's Mundra declined from 24th to 26th.

In 2025, the world's top 20 container ports handled nearly 450 million TEUs, an increase of roughly 5% to 6%. Fifteen were in Asia, and China accounted for nine of the top 20. The top 10 remained unchanged on a full-year basis, but the pace of growth varied sharply among individual ports.

U.S. and European gateways remain important, but their presence near the top of the global volume table is narrowing. The combined LA-Long Beach gateway was the only non-Asian port in the first-half top 10. The Port of New York and New Jersey handled about 4.4 million TEUs and fell one position to 22nd. The concentration of leading hubs in Asia reflects both the region's dominance of manufacturing exports and its position along the main east-west shipping lanes that carriers have repeatedly had to reroute in recent years.