In 2019, there were 28,584 port arrivals by 5981 foreign-flagged vessels in Australian ports. While this is a decrease in port arrivals by 1.8% from 2018, there was an increase in the number of unique ships by 1.4%.
![Figure 1a. Total foreign-flag vessel port arrivals by year.](/sites/default/files/inline-images/fig-1a.png)
![Figure 1b. Total unique vessel port arrivals by year.](/sites/default/files/inline-images/fig-1b.png)
Bulk carriers accounted for the majority (50.4%) of foreign flag port arrivals in 2019, with container vessels being the next most common (15.2%).2
![Figure 2. Foreign-flagged port arrivals by vessel type (2019)](/sites/default/files/inline-images/fig-2-graph.png)
The proportion of port arrivals by vessel type remained relatively consistent across the years (Figure 3), with bulk carriers dominating.
![Figure 3. Foreign flag port arrivals by vessel type and year (2016 to 2019)](/sites/default/files/inline-images/fig-3-carrier.png)
Footnote: 2 ‘Other’ vessel types includes tugs, offshore service vessels and other vessel types.