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Britain's Department for Transport confirmed on October 27, 2026, that it is discontinuing its official vessel-arrival statistics, ending a dataset used to track ship movements, vessel types and carrying capacity across UK ports. No figures will be published for 2025 onward under the existing PORT06 series, and four historical spreadsheets currently listed on the government's data portal are scheduled for withdrawal in summer 2027. The last annual report recorded 83,039 cargo-vessel arrivals at major UK ports in 2024. Officials say a stakeholder consultation received no responses and have identified weekly shipping indicators from the Office for National Statistics as an alternative, although those indicators do not reproduce the full scope of the discontinued records.
The Last Official Arrival Count
Britain is ending its annual vessel-arrival series, then plans to withdraw the historical tables from its current statistics portal.
Latest year covered by the government’s annual vessel-arrival series.
No new PORT06 vessel-arrival statistics will be published under the existing series.
Historical tables scheduled for withdrawal from the current government publication.
The 2024 fleet mix tells the story
Share of cargo-vessel arrivals and combined arriving deadweight at major UK ports.
UK major ports in 2024
The 83,039 figure covers cargo vessels at UK major ports. It is not a count of every ship type at every UK port.
The Data Gap Is Bigger Than a Missing Ship Count
Five table identifiers are named in the notice. Four are currently displayed for download. Their coverage cannot be replaced one-for-one with the ONS weekly shipping series.
The PORT06 tables scheduled for withdrawal
The latest PORT06 publication directory does not include a separate PORT0603 file. The discontinuation notice nevertheless uses the broader PORT0601–PORT0605 designation. Table descriptions and year limits reflect the government publication, not an independent audit of every historical worksheet.
Two official data sources, different questions
Researchers can lose a consistently presented national arrival dataset, particularly for locations outside the selected ONS port coverage.
The DfT combination of call counts and deadweight made it possible to study changes in the size profile of visiting ships.
Withdrawal of the associated tables reduces convenient access to historical freight analysis classified by registry and parent-owner nationality.
Source: UK Department for Transport PORT statistical directory and ONS weekly shipping methodology. The comparison identifies non-equivalent published series; it does not establish that every underlying administrative or commercial record is unavailable.
How Many Ship Calls Can a Cargo Statistic Hide?
Model hypothetical port-call changes when cargo volumes and average freight handled per ship change independently.
Set the scenario
Scenario output only. Not a measured or forecast 2025 vessel-arrival count.
Different arrival counts, same cargo baseline
The bars compare actual 2024 major-port cargo-vessel arrivals with a hypothetical scenario under your assumptions.
Alternative possibilities
With the same selected cargo-volume change, three different assumptions about freight per ship call produce three different arrival counts.
2024 reference: Department for Transport, Port Freight Annual Statistics 2024, Arrivals. All adjustable percentages and resulting forward-period values are user-defined ShipUniverse scenarios.
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