Panama Canal
Running normally — which is the answer to the question people ask.
Below normal −17% against its 2019–2023 baseline
Reading for — 6 days ago. Figures are a 30-day mean, so one quiet day does not move them.
Two years of daily transits
Month by month
| Month | Transits/day | vs baseline |
|---|---|---|
| October 2026 | 26 | −19% |
| September 2026 | 28 | −13% |
| August 2026 | 29 | −10% |
| July 2026 | 32 | −0% |
| June 2026 | 30 | −8% |
| May 2026 | 34 | +6% |
The 18 months before that
| Month | Transits/day | vs baseline |
|---|---|---|
| April 2026 | 35 | +8% |
| March 2026 | 34 | +5% |
| February 2026 | 32 | +0% |
| January 2026 | 31 | −5% |
| December 2025 | 32 | −2% |
| November 2025 | 32 | −2% |
| October 2025 | 32 | −1% |
| September 2025 | 32 | −2% |
| August 2025 | 31 | −3% |
| July 2025 | 31 | −3% |
| June 2025 | 30 | −7% |
| May 2025 | 30 | −7% |
| April 2025 | 31 | −3% |
| March 2025 | 31 | −3% |
| February 2025 | 32 | −2% |
| January 2025 | 30 | −8% |
| December 2024 | 31 | −3% |
| November 2024 | 31 | −3% |
Record high 48/day (February 2020), record low 19.4/day (January 2024), on the 30-day mean since January 2019.
Source
Daily transit counts derived from satellite AIS positions by IMF PortWatch, covering 2841 days from 1 January 2019.
Source: IMF PortWatch, https://portwatch.imf.org. PortWatch is published under IMF terms rather than CC BY 4.0, unlike the rest of the data on this site: the figures here are derived and transformed, and the underlying series is not republished.
Nothing is wrong here right now
Panama transits sit within a couple of percent of their 2019–2023 baseline, and within a couple of percent of where they were a year ago. On a page whose neighbours are down 30% and 77%, that is worth stating plainly rather than burying.
This is the reading most worth checking precisely because it changes. A route that is normal today is not a route that has always been normal.
Early 2024 shows what abnormal looks like here
The monthly table below carries the contrast. Daily transits fell to their lowest level in the record in January 2024 — roughly 40% below the baseline — and took most of a year to return. The canal operates on lock water rather than open sea, so its capacity depends on rainfall in a way no other route on this board does.
We report the count and its history. We do not model rainfall, and the figures here carry no forecast of whether the reduction repeats.
Why this route is different from the others
Suez, Bab el-Mandeb and Hormuz are down because of conflict, and their traffic went somewhere else. Panama’s constraint, when it binds, is physical capacity rather than risk — and there is no equivalent detour. A ship avoiding the Red Sea can round Africa. A ship that cannot transit Panama is looking at Cape Horn or the Suez route, neither of which is a near substitute.