The Port of Long Beach just had its busiest year ever

Published July 18, 2026

The Port of Long Beach moved a record 9.8 to 9.9 million containers in 2025 and wants to double that by 2050. Here is the plain read for a Long Beach rental owner, including the one number that governs your rent this year.

The short version. The Port of Long Beach just closed its busiest year in history, roughly 9.8 to 9.9 million container units in 2025, and its CEO unveiled a plan to nearly double cargo to about 20 million by 2050, backed by $3.2 billion in infrastructure. The port already supports 534,000 jobs across Los Angeles and Orange counties. This is a demand engine two miles from most of the rentals we manage down here. And this year a Long Beach owner is capped at 8 percent on a legacy tenant. Here is the plain read on all of it.

If you own here, your building sits inside a city economy anchored by one of the two busiest container ports in the country, and 2025 was the year that anchor pulled harder than it ever has. What follows is the version a manager sees, not the version a headline sees.

A record year on the water, and a plan to double it

Back in January the Port of Long Beach reported its busiest year on record, and its chief executive did not treat that as a ceiling. He told the Long Beach Post he wants to double cargo to around 20 million container units by 2050 on the back of $3.2 billion in infrastructure. That same reporting puts the port's footprint at 534,000 jobs across Los Angeles and Orange counties, and more than a million statewide.

Why should a rental owner care about a cargo number? Because a port that busy is not an abstraction on a chart. It is longshore work, trucking, warehousing, logistics offices, and the whole service economy that feeds those people. All of them need to live within a reasonable commute of the harbor, and the harbor is right here. When the busiest node in the regional goods economy sits inside your own city and is planning to get bigger rather than smaller, the tenant demand under your roof has a floor most cities would envy.

That is the piece worth sitting with. Plenty of markets are guessing about where the next wave of jobs lands. Long Beach has a $3.2 billion answer parked on the waterfront.

New reasons to want to be here

Demand is not only about work. It is about whether people actually want to be somewhere, and Long Beach spent 2026 handing them fresh reasons. In June the city opened its first waterfront amphitheater, the 11,000 seat open air F&M Bank Amphitheater beside the Queen Mary, which debuted on June 6 with Snoop Dogg headlining and runs an inaugural concert season through September.

A permanent 11,000 seat venue on the water quietly changes how a whole neighborhood feels. This is not a single weekend that comes and goes. It is a repeating draw that gives renters a reason to pay for proximity to the harbor and downtown, night after night, right through the season.

There is a bigger calendar behind it, too. Long Beach will host more Olympic events than any city outside Los Angeles proper in 2028, with a confirmed aquatics center at the Convention Center for water polo plus marathon swim and triathlon at Alamitos Beach, sailing off Belmont Shore, and rowing at Marine Stadium. Nothing about 2028 asks you to act today. You just want it on the board when you picture where this city is heading.

The one number that governs your rent this year

The port and the waterfront are the exciting part. Your rent cap is the part you actually act on. Long Beach has no local rent board, but the state cap applies, and for the current cycle that cap is 8 percent, which is 5 percent plus the 3 percent regional CPI, for increases effective from August 1, 2025 through July 31, 2026.

Two things sit alongside that number. Long Beach carries a citywide just cause ordinance, so the reason for ending a tenancy is governed even though the rent increase itself is set by the state. And the cap does not cover everything: single family homes that are not owned by a corporation are exempt, and so is construction newer than 15 years, which for now means buildings finished after 2011. Own one of those and the 8 percent figure may not be your ceiling at all.

The mistake I watch owners make cuts both ways. Some never file the increase. Some assume they are exempt when they are not. Some assume they are capped when they are actually exempt and leave money on the table. Either way it compounds. A skipped notice is not one year of a smaller rent, it is every year after that off a lower base. The exemptions have real teeth, so confirm your specific building and tenancy with a licensed professional before you serve a notice.

What I would do with this if it were your building

Start with the boring, high value move: pin down whether you are capped at 8 percent or exempt as a single family home or as newer construction, then file the correct increase on time. That one act, done right and done every year, quietly outperforms almost anything else on this list.

If you have a unit turning over, remember what pool you are turning it into. A record setting port and a brand new waterfront venue season are filling the demand side while your vacancy sits open. That is not the moment to rush into a below market lease you are then stuck with for a year. And if you tend to think in longer arcs, the port's growth plan and the 2028 events point the same way. The reasons to be near the Long Beach waterfront keep multiplying, not thinning out.

None of this is complicated once you know which bucket your building falls in. The hard part is just doing it before the notice window slips.

This is general information, not legal or tax advice. Confirm with a licensed professional before you act.

Topics: market, long-beach, south-bay, port, rent-cap

Back to the Schofield Properties blog

Schofield Properties is a family run property management company at 323 Richmond St, El Segundo, CA 90245. We have managed the South Bay since 1972 and personally oversee about 186 doors today. Book a call to talk about your property.