Australia runs 2 port systems that barely overlap. One moves iron ore, coal, gas plus salt in volumes no European port comes close to, and one moves containers at a scale a mid sized Asian terminal would recognise. New Zealand adds 2 container ports that split the country between them. Here is the 2026 ranking, with the financial year 2025/26 numbers that landed in July and August.
I use Australian port data as a sanity check whenever someone tells me tonnage rankings and container rankings measure the same thing. Port Hedland moved 580.4 million tonnes in 2025/26 and handles almost no containers at all. Melbourne moved 3.52 million TEU and would not appear in a bulk table. Both facts are true, and mixing them produces nonsense.
The bulk ports, where the real tonnage sits
Pilbara Ports, the authority covering Port Hedland, Dampier, Ashburton and Varanus Island, passed 800 million tonnes for the first time in the year to 30 June 2026. Throughput reached 804.1 million tonnes, up 3.7 percent on the previous record of 775.7 million, and the largest annual increase since 2017/18. Iron ore across all 4 ports rose 4 percent to 759.4 million tonnes, LNG added 26 million tonnes and salt 5.3 million. The export value is put at roughly 150 billion dollars.
| Port | Throughput, million tonnes | Period | Dominant cargo |
|---|---|---|---|
| Port Hedland | 580.4 | FY 2025/26 | Iron ore |
| Dampier | 178.3 | FY 2025/26 | Iron ore, LNG, salt |
| Newcastle | Above 154 | Calendar 2025 | Thermal coal |
| Gladstone | 111.7 | FY 2023/24 | Coal, LNG, alumina |
| Brisbane | 34.9 | FY 2024/25 | Mixed, containers, coal |
Port Hedland alone moved 35 percent more tonnage in 2025/26 than Rotterdam, the largest port in Europe, handled in calendar 2025 at 428.4 million tonnes. The comparison flatters neither side: it simply shows what happens when 1 commodity, 1 destination market and a dedicated heavy haul railway meet a deep water channel.
Newcastle is the coal counterweight on the east coast. Coal exports reached 71.5 million tonnes in the first half of 2026, up 5.2 percent year on year, on top of more than 154 million tonnes of total trade in calendar 2025, of which 149.1 million tonnes was coal, fractionally below the 149.9 million shipped in 2024. That growth sits awkwardly beside the port's own diversification programme, and it is the reason Newcastle appears in both energy transition arguments and freight statistics with opposite framing.
The container ranking is a different country
Australian container volumes are concentrated in 4 ports, and the order has not changed in years. What changed in 2025/26 is the rail share at Sydney and the growth rate at Melbourne.
| Port | Containers, million TEU | Period | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Melbourne | 3.52 | FY 2025/26 | Up 3.8 percent, June alone up 7.3 percent |
| Port Botany, Sydney | Around 2.8 | Recent annual | 99.6 percent of New South Wales container trade |
| Brisbane | 1.62 | FY 2024/25 | Record, with trade valued at 73.5 billion dollars |
| Fremantle | 0.81 | Recent annual | Western Australia's container gateway |
Melbourne has held the top position for decades and extended it in 2025/26 with 3.52 million TEU, up 3.8 percent. Port Botany is the constrained one: it moves about 2.8 million TEU against an installed capacity above 7 million, and its bottleneck has always been landside rather than quayside.
Which is why the number I found most interesting this year is not a container total at all. Port Botany moved a record 504,000 TEU by rail directly through its stevedore terminals in FY 2025/26, a 19 percent rail mode share, making it the first Australian port past half a million rail moved containers. For context, most Australian container ports have historically run rail shares in single digits. Terminal automation trends behind that shift are covered in our review of automated container terminals.
New Zealand: 2 ports, 2 models
New Zealand splits its container trade between Tauranga and Auckland, and the split is deliberate rather than accidental. Tauranga handled 1.2 million TEU in the year to 30 June 2025, up 5.3 percent, then 607,114 TEU in the first half of its 2026 financial year, up 2.6 percent. It runs as an export gateway with deep water and long dwell space, serving forestry, dairy, kiwifruit plus other horticulture.
Auckland handled 932,209 TEU in the year to 30 June 2026, up 5.5 percent, averaging about 16,800 TEU a week in the first half. It sits inside the city, faces permanent land constraints and functions as an import gateway for the largest consumer market in the country. The 2 ports are 200 km apart and compete on transhipment while cooperating on almost nothing else, which is a common pattern where a small national market meets 2 viable harbours.
How to read these numbers without being misled
- Financial years, not calendar years. Australian and New Zealand ports report to 30 June. A 2025/26 figure covers July 2025 to June 2026, so it is not comparable to a calendar 2025 figure from a European port.
- Tonnage and TEU answer different questions. Port Hedland outranks every container port on earth by mass and is irrelevant to container shippers.
- Authority totals hide individual ports. The 804.1 million tonne Pilbara figure covers 4 ports, and 2 of them, Ashburton and Varanus Island, are small.
- Some ports publish late. Gladstone's most recent widely cited total is FY 2023/24 at 111.7 million tonnes, so treat its position as indicative rather than current.
- Rail share matters more than berth count. Port Botany's 19 percent rail share in FY 2025/26 changes its effective capacity more than any crane order would.
- Capacity is not throughput. Botany can handle over 7 million TEU and moves about 2.8 million. The gap is land transport, not quay.
What moves next
Watch Port Kembla first. It holds concept approval as the next container terminal for New South Wales, yet development sits beyond 2030, which leaves Botany as the primary gateway for the rest of this decade. Port Hedland is separately advancing road access work that raises the ceiling on truck movements around the harbour. The third signal is Melbourne's growth rate: 3.8 percent for the year with a 7.3 percent June is running ahead of Australian population growth, which usually points to restocking rather than structural demand.
For shippers the practical read is unchanged. Australia is a bulk export economy with a container import problem, and the container problem is landside. If you are moving boxes into Sydney or Melbourne, the variables that decide your cost are rail slot availability, empty container park capacity, stevedore access charges plus weekend gate hours, none of which appear in a throughput table. Regional context is in our ranking of Asian ports and the global container port table.
Common questions
What is the biggest port in Australia? By tonnage, Port Hedland at 580.4 million tonnes in FY 2025/26. By containers, Melbourne at 3.52 million TEU over the same period.
How much does Pilbara Ports handle in total? A record 804.1 million tonnes in FY 2025/26 across Port Hedland, Dampier, Ashburton and Varanus Island, up 3.7 percent.
Which is the busiest container port in New Zealand? Tauranga, at 1.2 million TEU in the year to 30 June 2025, ahead of Auckland at 932,209 TEU in the year to 30 June 2026.
Why does Port Botany matter if Melbourne is bigger? Botany carries 99.6 percent of New South Wales container trade and reached a 19 percent rail mode share in FY 2025/26, which is the highest of any Australian container port.
Is Australian coal export volume falling? Not yet at Newcastle. Coal shipments there rose 5.2 percent year on year to 71.5 million tonnes in the first half of 2026. Bulk export capacity worldwide is compared in our bulk terminal ranking.
Why do Australian figures use 2025/26? Ports there report on a financial year ending 30 June, so FY 2025/26 covers July 2025 through June 2026.
Sources: Pilbara Ports annual trade release for the 2025/26 financial year published in July 2026, Port of Melbourne monthly and annual container reporting to June 2026, NSW Ports rail mode share disclosure for FY 2025/26, Port of Brisbane FY 2024/25 trade result, Port of Newcastle coal export reporting for the first half of 2026, Gladstone Ports Corporation FY 2023/24 figures, plus Port of Tauranga and Ports of Auckland financial year results to 30 June. Data reflects publications available on 31 August 2026.