Puerto Quetzal entered 2025 from a stronger volume base, but the more revealing part of its recent performance lies beneath the headline growth. In 2024, total throughput reached 19.16 million metric tonnes including the San José buoys, up 8% year on year, while container traffic rose 7% to 716,640 TEU. Yet the number of vessels handled across the same broader perimeter fell 7% to 1,371.
For Puerto Quetzal, the contrast points to a changing operating profile: more cargo moving through the system, but across fewer vessel calls.
Growth is becoming more cargo-intensive
The pattern extends beyond a single headline figure. Excluding the San José buoys, throughput rose 10% to 15.83 million tonnes in 2024. At the commercial quay, volumes increased 4% to 8.29 million tonnes. Both were the highest levels in the 2019–2024 series published by Empresa Portuaria Quetzal (EPQ).
Vessel activity moved the other way. Across EPQ and the San José buoys, the number of vessels handled declined from 1,468 in 2023 to 1,371 in 2024. Excluding the buoys, the count fell from 1,243 to 1,151.
A simple calculation based on EPQ’s published totals sharpens the contrast. On the broader perimeter, average tonnage per vessel handled increased from approximately 12,053 tonnes in 2023 to 13,972 tonnes in 2024 — a rise of nearly 16%.
That does not amount to proof of higher terminal productivity. The published data do not show vessel size, load factors, berth performance or cargo composition at call level. Larger ships, fuller calls or a changing cargo mix could all influence the ratio.
But the direction is still notable. Puerto Quetzal’s 2024 growth was not accompanied by more vessel calls. It came with greater cargo intensity across the calls recorded by the port system.
The headline growth masks an uneven trade mix
The second shift is visible in the composition of tonnage.
Imports reached 17.63 million tonnes in 2024, up 9% from the previous year and around 19% above 2019 levels. Exports, by contrast, slipped 1% to 1.53 million tonnes, after already falling sharply in 2023.
The result is a highly uneven flow profile. In tonnage terms, imports were roughly 11.5 times larger than exports in 2024.
This does not imply an equivalent imbalance in container flows. EPQ’s aggregate tonnage series covers different cargo categories, and the available charts do not provide enough detail to map the gap directly onto loaded container movements.
Still, the distinction matters. Puerto Quetzal’s record throughput was not the product of uniform growth across inbound and outbound flows. The 2024 expansion was overwhelmingly import-led.
Containers add another layer to that picture. Throughput reached a series high of 716,640 TEU, but the path there was far from linear: traffic rose 17% in 2021, fell 15% in 2022, rebounded 23% in 2023, then added another 7% in 2024.
By 2024, container volumes stood roughly 36% above 2020 levels. The longer trajectory therefore points to substantial expansion, but also to a recovery shaped by sharp year-to-year swings rather than uninterrupted growth.
Early 2025 data complicate the picture
The first ten months of 2025 suggest that the next phase may not simply replicate the pattern seen in 2024.
By October, total throughput including the San José buoys had reached 16.64 million tonnes. Excluding the buoys, the figure stood at 13.97 million tonnes, while container traffic reached 590,376 TEU.
Those partial-year totals require caution. They should not be compared mechanically with full-year 2024 figures.
Exports, however, stand out. By October 2025, Puerto Quetzal had handled 1.93 million tonnes of export cargo — already around 26% above the full-year 2024 total and above the level recorded for all of 2023.
That is a meaningful break from the recent pattern. Yet the available statistics do not identify which commodities drove the increase, making it impossible to determine whether the rebound reflects a broad shift in outbound activity or a more concentrated change in cargo mix.
For shipping lines, terminal operators and cargo interests, this is where Puerto Quetzal’s trajectory becomes more interesting than the record tonnage alone. The port is moving more cargo across fewer calls, while the balance between inbound and outbound growth may also be starting to change.
Whether that shift proves structural will depend on what sits behind the next set of numbers.
