Shipping to Port of Felixstowe

The Port of Felixstowe is Britain’s biggest and busiest container port, and one of the largest in Europe.

The Port of Felixstowe handles more than 4million TEUs (Twenty-foot Equivalent Units) and welcomes approximately 2,000 ships each year, including the largest container vessels afloat today – crucially, the port provides some of the deepest water close to the open sea of any European port. Around 17 shipping lines operate from the Port of Felixstowe, offering 33 services to and from over 700 ports around the world.

Together with its unrivaled rail and road links connecting the port to distribution hubs in the Midlands and elsewhere in the UK, the Port of Felixstowe plays a pivotal role in keeping the UK’s trade moving, and delivers real benefits to customers, the community and the industry.

The Port of Felixstowe, in Felixstowe, Suffolk, is the United Kingdom's busiest container port, dealing with 48% of Britain's containerized trade. In 2017, the Port of Felixstowe was ranked as 43rd busiest container port in the world and 8th in Europe, with a handled traffic of 3.85 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU).

The Port of Felixstowe is operated by the Felixstowe Dock and Railway Company, which was set up under an Act of Parliament, the Felixstowe Railway and Pier Act 1875, and so is one of the few limited companies in the UK that do not have the word "Limited" in their name. Much of the land on which the Port of Felixstowe sits is owned by Trinity College, Cambridge, which in the 1930s bought some land near Felixstowe which included a dock that was too small to be included in the National Dock Labour Scheme. In 1967, it set up Britain's first container terminal for £3.5m in a deal with Sea-Land Service.. Because container shipping is much more economically efficient in bulk, this early start led to the Port of Felixstowe becoming the UK's largest container port, despite its previous insignificance to the shipping market.

The Port of Felixstowe is owned by Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH) Group and has always been privately owned. In 1951, Gordon Parker, an agricultural merchant, bought the Felixstowe Dock & Railway Company, which at the time was handling only grain and coal. In 1976, Port of Felixstowe was bought by European Ferries. In June 1991, P&O sold Felixstowe to Hutchison Whampoa of Hong Kong for £90m. In June 1994, Hutchison Whampoa's Hutchison International Port Holdings bought out Orient Overseas International's 25% stake in Felixstowe for £50m.