Miami Cruise and Tourism Industry

PortMiami handled a record 8,564,225 cruise passengers in Fiscal Year 2025, a port Miami-Dade County calls the Cruise Capital of the World and the world's leading cruise port.

Miami-Dade County counts the port year from October 1 to September 30. In FY 2025 the total rose 4.02 percent from 8,233,056 passengers the year before, and the county called it the highest annual passenger count in the seaport's history (Miami-Dade County, December 2, 2025). FY 2024 had already jumped 12.79 percent over the FY 2023 record of 7,299,294 passengers (Miami-Dade County, November 7, 2024).

Timing matters when reading PortMiami numbers. The FY 2024 count was released on November 7, 2024 and the FY 2025 count on December 2, 2025, so the record on the county pages as of October 15, 2026 is still the FY 2025 figure, even though FY 2026 closed on September 30, 2026 (PortMiami).

Cargo runs alongside the cruise business at the same Miami port: 1,115,058 twenty-foot equivalent units moved in FY 2025, up 2.35 percent, the 11th straight year above one million (Miami-Dade County).

PortMiami has branded terminals for MSC Cruises, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian Cruise Line, Carnival Cruise Line and Virgin Voyages, plus shared Terminals C and J, with Royal Caribbean's Terminal G under construction.

The newest is MSC Cruises' Terminal AA, opened in 2025: 490,000 square feet on four levels, able to berth three ships and process up to 36,000 passengers in a day, which Miami-Dade County calls the largest cruise terminal in the world (PortMiami Cruise Terminals). Royal Caribbean International's Terminal A, The Crown of Miami, opened in 2018 at 170,000 square feet, and Norwegian Cruise Line's Terminal B, The Pearl of Miami, covers 190,000 square feet.

Carnival Cruise Line uses Terminals D, E and F; D and E were expanded in 2018 for larger ships, F was renovated in 2022, and together they cover 471,000 square feet. Virgin Voyages' Terminal V, opened in 2022, is a 100,000 square foot three-story building whose palm grove design nods to the Miami area's history of coconut harvesting. Terminal C serves ships from several lines, and the boutique Terminal J handles small vessels and luxury cruises (PortMiami Cruise Terminals).

Beyond those anchor tenants, the PortMiami cruise line list includes Azamara, Celebrity Cruises, Cunard, Explora Journeys, Holland America Line, Oceania Cruises, Princess, Regent Seven Seas Cruises, Seabourn and TUI Cruises among more than two dozen names (PortMiami Cruise Lines). Itineraries from Miami reach the Eastern and Western Caribbean, Mexico, Key West and South America.

PortMiami is a Miami-Dade County seaport, not a City of Miami department, and the county credits it with $61 billion a year in economic activity and more than 340,000 jobs.

The county names Hydi Webb as PortMiami Director and CEO, and its address is 1080 Caribbean Way, Miami, FL 33132 (Miami-Dade County). The current PortMiami home page also names Webb as Director and CEO, but the shared About Us panel on the port's pages still links a Director's Biography for Jonathan Daniels, an outdated listing (PortMiami). The port is a county operation, and its Terminal Tariff No. 010, effective October 1, 2025, is issued under Miami-Dade County's authority (PortMiami).

The county's own numbers do not match across pages. The PortMiami home page headline lists $61 billion annually and 340,078 jobs, and its About Us panel says more than 340,000 jobs across Florida (PortMiami home page), while the Business Information block on the home page and the directions page still says $42 billion annually and calls the port the second largest economic engine in Miami-Dade County (PortMiami Directions and Parking). The December 2025 release repeats $61 billion, and none of the county pages explains the difference.

PortMiami also partners with the Greater Miami Convention and Visitors Bureau to showcase Miami as a cruise homeport and vacation destination for pre- or post-cruise trips (PortMiami).

Leisure and hospitality held about 153,400 jobs in the Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall division in August 2026, a preliminary figure from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

BLS Economy at a Glance for the Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall, FL division shows leisure and hospitality at 156.4 thousand jobs in March 2026, 157.4 thousand in May 2026 and 153.4 thousand in August 2026 (preliminary), all not seasonally adjusted (BLS Economy at a Glance). The August 2026 preliminary figure was 1.9 percent above a year earlier.

Total nonfarm employment in the division was 1,349.4 thousand in August 2026 (preliminary). Among the months BLS shows, leisure and hospitality was highest in May 2026 at 157.4 thousand and fell to 156.4 thousand in June, 154.6 thousand in July and 153.4 thousand in August (BLS Economy at a Glance). The same BLS table put the Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall unemployment rate at 2.7 percent in August 2026 (preliminary).

The BLS count covers the whole leisure and hospitality supersector in the Miami-Miami Beach-Kendall division, not cruise lines alone. Miami-Dade County's figure of more than 340,000 jobs belongs to the whole port, cargo included, and the PortMiami home page describes those jobs as across Florida (PortMiami).

Cruise passengers can reach PortMiami on cruise line shuttles from Miami International Airport, by shuttle or limousine, or by car through the toll-free Port of Miami Tunnel, which links the port to I-395 and the MacArthur Causeway.

Most cruise lines offer shuttle service from Miami International Airport to the port, and shuttles and limousines are also available; PortMiami also posts directions from Fort Lauderdale International Airport (PortMiami Directions and Parking). Parking is available for each cruise terminal on both the north and south sides of the port, and PortMiami says the tunnel eases downtown congestion.

The airport side is large: Miami International Airport, owned by Miami-Dade County, handled 55,314,661 passengers in 2025 and ranked second among U.S. airports for international passengers in its final 2025 rankings (Miami International Airport). In August 2026 MIA listed 92 carriers serving Miami.

For returning travelers, PortMiami is the first seaport to host a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Global Entry Enrollment Center (PortMiami).

PortMiami is adding Royal Caribbean's Terminal G, running shore power for cruise ships and bringing new ships into the Miami lineup from October 2025 through May 2026.

Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava, the Board of County Commissioners, PortMiami and Royal Caribbean Group held a groundbreaking for the new Cruise Terminal G (PortMiami). The PortMiami terminals page still reads that construction will begin on the west end of the port in summer 2025 and that the terminal is expected to open in 2027 (PortMiami Cruise Terminals), while the PortMiami home page already reports the groundbreaking.

Shore power started on June 17, 2024, letting ships plug into landside electricity at the Miami docks instead of running engines. It is a partnership of Miami-Dade County, Carnival Corporation, MSC Cruises, Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings, Royal Caribbean Group, Virgin Voyages and Florida Power & Light Company, and the county says PortMiami is the first major cruise port on the U.S. eastern seaboard to offer shore power capability at five cruise berths (Miami-Dade County).

New ships for the 2025-2026 season included Cunard's Queen Elizabeth and Virgin Voyages' Brilliant Lady in October 2025, MSC Grandiosa in December 2025, Norwegian Luna in March 2026 and Silversea's Silver Nova in May 2026 (Miami-Dade County). On the cargo side, phase two of the electric rubber-tired gantry crane project brings the South Florida Container Terminal at PortMiami to 18 cranes.