The ports of Italy and Greece recorded the most maritime transport passengers in the EU, according to Eurostat data for 2024, which were made public.
In 2024, Italian ports recorded 93.5 million passengers, or 22.7% of the EU total, followed by Greece with 81.1 million passengers (19.7%). Denmark came third with 41.3 million passengers (10%).
The three busiest EU passenger ports were in Italy: Messina (11.4 million passengers), Reggio di Calabria (11.2 million) and Naples (11 million). Piraeus comes fourth with 10 million passengers.
Between 2019 and 2024, Greece gained 7.1 million passengers (+9.7%), Italy 7 million (+8.0%) and Malta 2 million (+14.9%). In contrast, the largest decreases 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 412.3 million passengers. The number of passengers was 18.8 million higher than in 2023 (+4.8%), although total traffic remained slightly below 2019 levels (-1.4%).
APE-MPE
