Rabat – Morocco ranked among Spain’s most important maritime trading partners in 2025, with 26.3 million tons of goods moving between the two countries through Spanish ports, according to data from Puertos del Estado, Spain’s public authority for the country’s general-interest port network.
The figure marked a 3.6% increase from 2024 and placed Morocco third among Spain’s maritime trade partners, behind the United States and Brazil.
Yet the overall volume tells only part of the story.
What stands out in the data is the direction of trade. Among Spain’s 10 largest maritime partners, Morocco was the only country where Spanish exports exceeded imports by a significant margin.
Spanish ports sent 15.6 million tons of goods to Morocco last year, while 10.7 million tons arrived from Moroccan ports.
The figures point to a maritime trade relationship in which Spain ships substantially more goods to Morocco than it receives from the North African country by sea.
Morocco anchors Spain’s North African trade
Morocco’s position also reflects the growing importance of North Africa within Spain’s maritime trade network.
Spanish ports handled 90.3 million tons of goods linked to North African markets in 2025, making the region Spain’s second-largest trading area after the European Union.
North Africa accounted for 16.7% of all goods handled by Spanish ports, putting the region ahead of North America.
Within that wider market, Morocco has emerged as a particularly important commercial and logistical partner. Its proximity to Spain, combined with its position between Europe, Africa, and Atlantic trade routes, gives the North African country a strategic role in the movement of goods across the region.
The latest figures come as Spain’s ports maintained a high level of activity despite a difficult international environment. The country’s ports handled 556.2 million tons of goods in 2025, a figure broadly unchanged from the previous year despite geopolitical tensions and weaker global trade in some sectors.
Container traffic, meanwhile, continued to grow. Spanish ports handled more than 18.6 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) during the year, with transshipment accounting for more than half of the total. The process involves transferring containers from one vessel to another before they reach their final destination.
Algeciras leads Spanish port traffic
Algeciras remained Spain’s busiest port by cargo volume, followed by Valencia and Barcelona.
For Morocco, the figures point to the country’s growing role in Spain’s maritime trade network, not simply as a source of goods but as a major destination for Spanish exports.
The 2025 data therefore offer a different picture from a simple ranking of Spain’s trading partners. Morocco sits among the country’s largest maritime partners, but the balance of cargo flows is clearly tilted toward the North African country.
That pattern makes Morocco distinctive among Spain’s principal maritime markets and further highlights the scale of the commercial ties that connect the two sides of the Strait of Gibraltar.
