Second-placed Cyprus among the EU members transporting most freight by sea in 2023

In 2023, roughly two-thirds (67.4%) of all freight transported within the EU territory was by sea when considering the amount of goods and the travel distance (tonne-kilometres), Eurostat has reported, also noting that Cyprus took second place when it came to freight transported by sea.

"For 15 out of the 22 EU countries with a coastline, maritime was the main mode of freight transport and in 10 countries it accounted for more than 70% of freight transport. More than 95% of freight was transported by sea in Portugal (98.2%), Cyprus (96.5%) and Greece (96.4%)," Eurostat said.

Meanwhile, road freight transport accounted for 25.3% of all freight, while rail transport represented 5.5%.  Inland waterways accounted for 1.6% of freight transport and the share of air transport was 0.2%.

The report took into account that Cyprus has no rail transport and that Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain and Norway have insignificant or no inland waterway freight transport.

"Compared with 2013, road transport was the only mode with an increasing share, rising by 2.8 percentage points (pp) over the 10 year period. At the same time, the share of maritime transport decreased by 2.0 pp, inland waterways by 0.6 pp and rail transport by 0.2 pp," Eurostat said.

The information came from data on the modal split of freight transport published by Eurostat on 16 April. This article presents a handful of findings from the more detailed Statistics Explained article on freight transport – modal split.

Meanwhile, more than 70% of all freight was transported on roads in Luxembourg (84.5%), Czechia (77.7%) and Hungary (70.7%).

High shares of rail freight transport were recorded in Lithuania (31.7%), Slovakia (30.1%), Austria (29.1%) and Slovenia (27.1%). 

Romania recorded the highest share of goods transported along its inland waterways (18.9%), followed by the Netherlands (11.7%) and Bulgaria (8.7%).

Air transport made up at least 1% of all freight transport in only 7 countries, with Romania (1.6%), Luxembourg (1.5%), Hungary and Lithuania (1.3% each) recording the highest shares.