In 2024, the ports of Italy and Greece recorded the highest number of passengers in the EU, according to Eurostat data.

Italian ports recorded 93.5 million passengers, or 22.4% of the EU total, followed closely by Greece with 81.1 million passengers (19.4%). Denmark came in third with 41.3 million passengers (9.9%).

The top 10 busiest EU passenger ports recorded 21.8% of the EU’s seaborne passengers. These included 7 ports in the Mediterranean, 2 in the Baltic and 1 in the North-East Atlantic.

The 3 busiest EU passenger ports were all in Italy: Messina came first with 11.4 million passengers, followed by Reggio di Calabria (11.2 million passengers) and Napoli (11.0 million).

Compared with 2019, Napoli recorded the biggest increase in the number of passengers (+1.7 million; +18.5%).

Between 2019 and 2024, half of the top 10 countries recorded increases in the number of passengers. Greece gained 7.1 million passengers (+9.7%), Italy 7.0 million (+8.0%) and Malta 2.0 million (+14.9%).

In contrast, the largest declines were recorded in Sweden (-5.7 million; -18.7%), Finland (-4.8 million; -25.1%) and Germany (-3.1 million; -9.8%).

In 2024, EU ports recorded 417.8 million passengers, as the sector continued to show signs of recovery after the COVID-affected slump. Passenger numbers were 24.3 million higher than in 2023 (+6.2%), the overall traffic approaching the 2019 levels (-0.1%).