In 2025, short sea shipping services in Spain have transported a total of 257.5 million tons of cargo, with a decrease of -4.3% compared to 269.1 million tons in the previous year, which is mainly driven by traffic fell by -6.4% to the lowest level of the in recent years, even lower than that of 2020, while the national cabotage recorded a growth of +2.9%. He notes it the latest report of the Observatorio Estadístico del Transporte Marítimo de Corta Distancia elaborated by the Asociación Española de Promoción del Transporte Marítimo de Corta Distancia, which highlights how in Spain, after years of sustained growth, maritime transport in short-range has entered a phase of structural slowdown.

Last year, almost half of the maritime transport to with Spain (48.9%) was made up of bulk cargo (125.9 million tonnes) and the other half (51.1%), from miscellaneous goods (131.7 million tonnes) distributed among containerised goods (65 million tonnes) million tonnes), ro-ro freight (55.9 million tonnes) and conventional goods (10.8 million tons). Compared to 2024, Solid and liquid bulk traffic has changed miscellaneous: liquid bulk traffic (83.8 million tonnes) remained stable, while that of dry bulk (42.1 million tonnes) decreased by -14.0%. Traffic overall general cargo decreased by -3.4% due to the significant reduction (-9.1%) in containerized traffic, while conventional freight traffic increased by +5.7% and a slight positive change (+2.2%) was recorded also from ro-ro traffic.

According to the report, the main breaking with respect to previous years is represented by the impact of the new European and international environmental regulations on transport maritime system, with the entry into force of the IMO standards, the EU ETS emissions trading and the EU Regulation FuelEU Maritime that would have profoundly changed the balance between maritime transport and road transport. In In particular, the report notes that if in the period 2013-2019 the growth in short sea shipping in Spain had been higher than that of road transport, with an average annual increase of respectively at +7.8% and +4.6%, and a coefficient of correlation of 0.95, in the period 2021-2025, with the entry into force of in 2020 of the new IMO regulation on the upper limit of the sulphur in marine fuels and after application to the maritime in 2024 and 2025 of the ETS and the FuelEU Regulation, The evolution was the opposite: +2.1% average annual increase of road transport against the -2.3% drop in short sea shipping and a correlation coefficient of -0.64.

The report also points out that in 2025 the supply of Ro-Ro maritime services, in terms of capacity, is decreased on both the Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts, with the first which recorded a decrease of -16.6% from three to 2.5 million linear metres, while in the Mediterranean the decline is -11%, from 6.4 to 5.7 million linear metres. The document explains that shipping companies are reacting to the contraction of demand by reducing frequencies and services: in the second Half of 2025, 14 services operated by seven companies with 34 ro-ro vessels; in the Mediterranean five companies covered 13 maritime lines with 31 naval units. The Motorways of the Sea also showed signs of weakening and in 2025 the overall capacity of these services decreased by -12.8%, with the coast which has lost two connections, with a reduction in the capacity of -22.6%, while the Mediterranean limited the drop to -5.7% thanks mainly to traffic with North Africa.

On the demand side, ro-ro traffic last year international sector recorded a reduction of -0.8% to 25.1 million tons. The report specifies that, however, the This figure hides strong differences between the Atlantic coast (-8.7%) and the Mediterranean (+0.6%). What weighs above all is the slowdown in traffic with some European countries: connections with Belgium have collapsed by -26.4%, those with Italy by -6.0% and those with the United Kingdom by -2.2%. In contrast to the trend, the Morocco, which grew by +4.6%, confirming itself as one of the more dynamic markets for the Spanish maritime system.

The commercial vehicle segment is also in difficulty transported which is an important component of the traffic international ro-ro. In 2025, the sector, with 3.2 million tonnes transported, equivalent to approximately 1.4 million vehicles, recorded a contraction of -7.7%. The decline concerned in particular the Mediterranean coast (-18.4%) and embarkations (-14.7%, while the Atlantic coast showed growth of +3.4%, with shipments up +12.2%.