Frequently asked questions

In October of 2023, WorldCity made a change to the way it handles the U.S. Census Bureau data on this site.

WorldCity improves on the U.S. Census Bureau’s handling of the data by more clearly delineating between airports, seaports and border crossings.

A little background first: The U.S. Census Bureau receives its trade data from Customs and Border Protection. Census then provides WorldCity the data.

The data includes a breakdown by the countries with which the U.S. trades, U.S. exports, U.S. imports and the “ports” – airports, seaports and border crossings – where those commodities, or products, enter or exit the United States. 

With the port data, the U.S. Census Bureau sometimes combines an airport and a seaport or an airport and a border crossing and sometimes it doesn’t.

For example, what Census calls “Chicago, IL (port),” is largely exports and imports flying into and out of Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport. But it includes data for the seaport there, the Port of Chicago. It is a similar situation in Cleveland, Anchorage, Newark, New Orleans, San Diego and elsewhere.

But it is not the case in Miami, where there are separate listings for the Port of Miami and Miami International Airport, or Houston, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, Baltimore, New York, Philadelphia, Detroit and elsewhere.

The change we made in October of 2023 was to separate those airports and seaports that were previously listed as one port, and separate airports from border crossings, where connected.

You can contact us here and we will get back to you as soon as possible. We are located in Florida so if you contact us after hours expect a little delay.

Additionally, at the bottom of each page is the Contact Us link.

We are working hard to improve the Help Section so please let us know if you have any other questions or concerns that need to be addressed.

No, we do not have company names.

Currently, our data is about specific exports/imports ( commodities ) from/to U.S. ports with foreign trade partners. For instance, if you are looking for exports of cotton from the Port of Los Angeles. We have it. You can drill down further and find which countries the Port of Los Angeles trades cotton with during a specific date range.

The U.S. Census Bureau.

Yes. Once you are a subscriber, you will have access to the data anytime, anywhere or any device.

We currently have annual data going back to 2011 and monthly data from 2013 but our database is growing monthly and other datasets will be added over time.

There is a search bar on the top of each data page. You can search by country, port, export, import. You can also search by country code, port code or harmonized code.

We use the Harmonized Tariff code for all commodities. The data we provide is at the four-digit level.

You have to go all the way to the 10-digit level to break some commodities down to, say, kerosene -- and the port-level data you like only goes to six digits.

It is the Customs district data that goes to 10 digit. Here, we can help you but it would be a manual process, let us know what kind of data you are looking for, happy to review options.

The tonnage data available is in kilograms, so metric "tonnes" is actually correct.

Sure. Visit our Product and Services page here.

USTradeNumbers.com offers data for more than 450 U.S. airports, seaport and border crossings. So, for any one of those “ports,” you can see a wide array of data.

• You can determine the leading exports and imports for up to 225-plus countries, by current month, YTD or latest annual, and by value or tonnage.
• You can determine how that trade occurs – by air, ocean or land, by percentage and value or whether there’s a trade deficit.
• You can start with any of more than 2,500 specific exports or imports to determine which countries are receiving that export or sending that import – and which other ports are “competitors.”

We also offers data for more than 225 countries. For any of these countries, there is equally rich and deep data available.

• You can determine the leading exports and imports for up to 475 airports, seaports and border crossings, by current month, YTD or latest annual, and by value or tonnage. (Tonnage data not available for border crossings.)

• You can determine how that trade occurs – by air, ocean or land, by percentage and value or whether there’s a trade deficit.
• You can start with any of more than 2,500 specific exports or imports to determine which ports are receiving that export or sending that import – and which other countries are “competitors.”
• We also offers greater depth on all exports and imports.

For Basic and Premium subscribers, we make monthly data available in the current year, as well as year-to-date data and annual data for the previous year. For Basic Plus and Premium Plus subscriptions, which include Excel
downloads, we make up to eight years of data available. Contact us if your needs exceed that at info@woocommerce-189213-560374.cloudwaysapps.com.

All subscription sales are final.

Yes, though you will need to contact us to upgrade within a specific subscription. You can add additional airports, seaports, border crossings, countries, exports or imports.

No. While our payments go through PayPal, you can also use any Visa, MasterCard or American Express card. In addition, you can pay by check, though that will delay your access to the data.

WorldCity, founded in 1998 by President Ken Roberts, has been producing annual TradeNumbers publications for a wide variety of communities since launching Miami TradeNumbers in 2001. It has produced TradeNumbers for many of the nation’s leading Customs districts, ports, border crossings and countries, including Los Angeles, Seattle, Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, New Orleans, New York, George, China, South Korea, Mexico, Perishables and numerous others.

It has been publishing trade data at woocommerce-189213-560374.cloudwaysapps.com for more than a decade.

In addition, Mr. Roberts is a regular speaker nationally, is a regular contributor at Forbes.com on trade, and is a two-term member of a dozen members of the Federal Reserve’s Trade and Transportation Advisory Board.