Accredited official statistics

Sea passenger statistics: Domestic sea passengers 2023

Published 13 August 2024

About this release

This statistical release presents final statistics on sea passengers on domestic routes to and from the UK for 2023.

Domestic passengers travel on domestic routes, including domestic sea crossings, domestic cruises, river ferries and inter-island journeys.

These statistics include all vehicle drivers (including Heavy Goods Vehicle drivers), their passengers and foot passengers on ferries.

2023 release

Comparisons have been made with figures from 2022, as well as 2019, the last full year before the coronavirus pandemic started.

Headline figures

In 2023, domestic sea passenger numbers increased above 2022, however they remained below 2019 levels overall.

Domestic sea passenger numbers remained at similar levels to 2022, from 37.4 million to 37.8 million in 2023. This follows a broadly stable trend in domestic sea passengers before 2019, a decrease from 2020 to 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic and a subsequent recovery in 2022 (chart 1).

Chart 1: UK domestic sea passengers, 2013 to 2023 (SPAS0201)

Chart 1 is a line graph that shows domestic passengers between 2013 and 2023.

In 2023, compared to 2022 and 2019:

• the total number of passengers on domestic sea crossings increased by 3% to 3.8 million compared to 2022 and increased 9% compared to 2019 levels
• inter-island passengers increased by 2% from the previous year, but remained 14% lower than in 2019
• the number of passengers on river ferries remained at similar levels to 2022 but was 10% lower than 2019 passenger numbers

Sea passengers on domestic routes

Definitions

Inter-island: covers routes between the mainland and UK islands, such as Isle of Skye and the Isle of Wight. It also covers internal ferry routes on lochs such as Strangford to Portaferry in Northern Ireland.

River ferries: figures for river ferries are collected annually from the operators. Routes are generally included in this statistical release when the passenger-km figure is greater than 500 passenger-kms. Most of the river ferry passengers are on journeys made along the River Thames. The notes and definitions accompanying this report have a breakdown of the routes that are included.

Major domestic crossings (short sea): includes all routes between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Isle of Man and the Channel Islands.

Minor domestic crossings (short sea): all other short sea passenger routes including routes between Great Britain and Orkney and Shetland Islands.

Domestic cruise: all passengers on domestic cruises in the UK (with no cruise stops at foreign ports). These figures were collected for the first time in 2021 and can be found in table SPAS0201. Large domestic cruises did not previously occur but were a feature in 2021 when they were permitted under the domestic roadmap for England. This was the first stage of the wider restart of cruises following the industry’s pause during the coronavirus pandemic, with international cruises restarting from August 2021.

The total number of sea passengers on domestic routes comprises passengers on domestic sea crossings, domestic cruises, inter-island domestic routes and river ferries.

Of the total 37.8 million domestic sea passengers, 17.3 million (46%) were river ferry passengers and another 16.6 million (44%) were inter-island passengers. The remaining 3.9 million (10%) were domestic sea crossings and domestic cruises. 79% of passengers on domestic sea crossings travelled on major domestic routes, with the remaining 21% of passengers travelling on minor domestic routes. These proportions are broadly consistent with previous years.

The number of passengers undertaking domestic sea crossings was relatively stable from 2010 to 2019. This dropped substantially from 3.5 million passengers in 2019 to 1.5 million in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Passenger numbers on domestic sea crossings have recovered from the drop due to the coronavirus pandemic and in 2023 they were 9% above 2019 levels, with 3.8 million domestic sea crossing passengers (chart 2).

In May 2021, UK domestic cruises were allowed to operate as part of the gradual lifting of coronavirus restrictions and in 2021 there were 465,000 domestic cruise passengers. This decreased by 90% to 46,000 in 2022 due to the reopening of international cruises. In 2023, domestic cruises reached 154,000 passengers, an increase of more than three times the 2022 value.  

Chart 2: UK domestic sea passengers by type of route, 2013 to 2023 (SPAS0201)

Passengers on river ferries

In 2023, there were 17.3 million passengers on river ferries.  Data for one river ferry operator has been imputed for 2023, therefore no comparisons with previous years have been made. The methodology for the imputation can be found in the notes and definitions section.

Passengers on inter-island domestic routes

The number of passengers on inter-island journeys remained stable from 2010 to 2019 but saw a large decrease from 19.3 million passengers in 2019 to 9.1 million in 2020. Passenger numbers have continued to recover, reaching 16.6 million passengers in 2023. This is a 2% increase compared to 2022 and 14% below 2019 numbers.

There were 7.6 million passengers between Hampshire and the Isle of Wight in 2023, an increase of 4% compared to 2022. Passengers on all other inter-island routes saw a slight decrease of 2% from 2022.

In 2023, passengers on Scottish inter-island routes remained broadly similar to 2022 passenger numbers. See the Transport Scotland Water Transport statistics for further information, including figures for individual routes.

Trends for major domestic routes (short sea)

Map 1: Top 5 UK major domestic short sea routes in 2023 by number of passengers (millions) and change from 2022 (SPAS0201)  

In 2023, there was an increase in passenger numbers of 3% (compared to 2022) to 3.8 million passengers travelling on domestic short sea routes. This is 9% above 2019 numbers.

Domestic sea crossings from Great Britain to Northern Ireland are 2% above 2019 levels. Cairnryan – Belfast is consistently the busiest domestic short sea route. In 2023, this route saw 1.2 million passengers, a decrease of 5% on 2022 (map 1). Liverpool – Belfast and Cairnryan – Larne are the next busiest domestic short sea routes with 0.5 and 0.4 million passengers respectively.

The routes Heysham – Douglas and Liverpool – Douglas were the main routes from Great Britain to Isle of Man and are in the top 5 UK major domestic short sea routes with 0.3 million passengers each in 2023. Heysham – Douglas had a 4% increase from 2022 and Liverpool – Douglas had a 6% increase from 2022 (map 1, chart 3).

Chart 3: Top 5 busiest major domestic sea crossing routes, 2013 to 2023 (SPAS0201)

Detailed statistics on domestic sea passengers can be found in data table SPAS0201.

Annex: timeline of coronavirus events affecting sea travel

A timeline of events during the coronavirus pandemic that affected sea travel since March 2020 until March 2022 can be found in the notes and definitions section.

Background information

The data tables for sea passenger statistics are available.

Full guidance on the methods used in the publication of these releases, and the quality of the data, and known users and uses of the statistics are available.

The sea passenger statistics are accredited official statistics. The statistics presented in this release were independently reviewed by the Office for Statistics Regulation in February 2013 and are therefore labelled ‘accredited official statistics’.

Details of ministers and officials who receive pre-release access to these statistics up to 24 hours before release are available.

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Contact details

Sea passenger statistics

Email sea-passenger.stats@dft.gov.uk

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