Southampton handled 86% of UK international cruise passengers in record 2025

The United Kingdom recorded 3.1 million international cruise passengers in 2025, according to final statistics from the Department for Transport. The release, published on 29 July 2026, describes the figure as the highest recorded in the series. It also says the total was 51 per cent above the 2.0 million recorded in 2019. This article is independently written from the factual information cited in the Department for Transport release. It does not copy or closely paraphrase the source.

The national total remained stable year on year, but the distribution between ports was heavily concentrated. Southampton accounted for 2.6 million passengers, equivalent to 86 per cent of the total. The figures count passengers embarking or disembarking at a UK port. They exclude transit-only calls, making the release a measure of port-based international passenger movement rather than every cruise visit made around the UK.

A dominant southern gateway

Southampton’s 2.6 million passengers place it well ahead of the other named ports in the release. Dover recorded 102,000 passengers. Liverpool recorded 70,000, London 131,000 and Portsmouth 61,000. Together, those four figures represent a much smaller share of the reported national activity than Southampton’s total.

The data therefore describe two features of the 2025 market at once. Overall demand reached a series high, while the principal burden and opportunity remained concentrated at one port. That concentration matters for the businesses, transport networks and communities connected with Southampton, although the statistics themselves do not measure local economic effects or operational pressures.

The comparison with 2019 supplies the longer view. The 2025 total was more than half as large again as the pre-pandemic figure cited by the Department. The release’s year-on-year description is stable, so the record was not presented as the result of a sudden annual surge. Instead, it shows a sector that has regained and exceeded its earlier level within the statistical series.

Care is needed when reading the port figures. A passenger embarking or disembarking is included, while someone making only a transit call is not. The statistics should not therefore be treated as a complete count of all cruise-related visits, nor as a direct ranking of the economic value generated by each port. They provide a defined count of international sea passengers using UK ports.

For Southampton, the result reinforces its position as the country’s leading cruise gateway in the release. For Dover, Liverpool, London and Portsmouth, the numbers show established but smaller roles within the recorded market. The figures also offer a baseline for future comparisons, particularly as the industry and government consider how passenger growth is distributed across the UK.

The headline from the 2025 data is consequently both national and local. The UK reached 3.1 million international cruise passengers, the highest in the series, but 2.6 million of them were recorded at Southampton.

Source attribution: this report is independently written from the cited factual information in the UK Department for Transport’s International Sea Passengers 2025 statistics, published on 29 July 2026.

References: [1] [International Sea Passengers 2025](https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/sea-passenger-statistics-all-routes-2025/sea-passenger-statistics-international-sea-passengers-2025)