Fred. Olsen Cargo Express consolidates a structural shift in the Canary Islands
The reshaping of supply chains in the Canary Islands’ ultraperipheral region is consolidating a structural change driven by geographic constraints and tax asymmetries. Fred. Olsen Express, the former partner of Baleària, recorded an accumulated volume of 915,168 tonnes of goods transported through its specialized division, Cargo Express. After 24 months of operations, it reached an operating benchmark of 1,000,000 linear metres of roll-on, roll-off cargo. These figures point to a critical dependence on a disconnected model in a fragmented market that requires the daily supply of fast-moving consumer goods.
How AIEM affects supermarket chains and distributors
The AIEM requires large supermarket chains and distributors to pay a customs duty ranging from 5% to 15% when bringing goods into the islands. If a company buys a large stock for several months, it has to advance millions of euros in tax payments—money that is kept “frozen” in Customs until it manages to sell the product or process a complex administrative refund. This creates a high opportunity cost for investors.
By introducing three vessels dedicated exclusively to freight—Bentayga, Bahía and Breñas Cargo—Fred. Olsen offers daily frequencies. That allows distributors to shift from a “large storage” strategy to a circulating inventory or just-in-time approach. Companies no longer accumulate stock in large warehouses on the islands. Instead, they prefer moving daily “disconnected” trailers carrying the exact goods to be consumed the following day. In doing so, they avoid having to advance the million-euro AIEM payment upfront, protect their cash flow, and reduce tax refunds (which fell -3.7% in 2025).
AIEM shapes inter-island freight flows
AIEM in the Canary Islands directly conditions the composition of this inter-island traffic. The cargo division’s holds reflect this regulatory framework. Transport of the so-called “Asinca world”—bottled water, soft drinks, processed food and glass packaging—forms the core of the vessels’ daily capacity. These are the sectors where large retailers require a continuous logistics flow to optimize the balance between imported stock and local production without incurring redundant tax costs.
Fiscal seasonality and the impact of August
The official accounting of net refunds of the levy reveals extreme financial volatility and a cyclical time concentration. During the 2024 fiscal year, the total volume of accumulated refunds by the Canarian Treasury reached €2,167,537. The monthly pattern of this tax liability shows absolute asymmetry: August concentrated 82.6% of the annual total with €1,790,780 returned, followed at a distance by December with €127,875. At the opposite end, January 2024 recorded a financial floor of only €5,446 in settled refunds. Intermediate months were moderate: February totaled €41,090; March, €16,340; April, €27,234; May, €10,769; June, €44,911; July, €23,937; September, €5,951; October, €47,128; and November, €26,076.
The 2025 performance reinforced this concentration trend, with an annual total of €2,087,643 in net refunds, reflecting a -3.7% contraction versus the previous year. August 2025 again distorted the historical series by recording €1,737,883 returned—equivalent to 83.2% of the year’s total. The rest of the months in the 2025 period showed the following nominal distribution: January reported €14,881; February, €55,951; March, €26,863; April, €23,764; May, €25,407; June, €55,894; July, €116,674; September, €1,995; October, €6,416; November, €10,609; and December, €11,307. This historical series confirms the effect of summer tourism on the consumption of protected goods.
Inventory arbitrage through ‘Just-in-Time’ logistics
Analysis of year-on-year rates points to a change in the balance-sheet strategy of local commercial operators. The -20.9% drop in levy refunds recorded for the 2024 period versus 2023, together with the -3.7% decline in 2025, suggests that companies prefer to mitigate the opportunity cost of capital tied up. Rather than executing large-scale imports that require the advance payment of the levy to initiate refund claims delayed by complex administrative procedures running for months, financial distributors have replaced fixed stock with a circulating inventory delivery model with immediate supply.
Reducing treasury risk correlates directly with the expansion of the infrastructure of Fred. Olsen Cargo Express. The shipping line introduced the Bentayga Cargo vessel in May 2024 as the first unit dedicated exclusively to roll-on, roll-off cargo. Operating capacity increased with the addition of Bahía Cargo in November 2024, and was completed with Breñas Cargo in July 2025. Deploying these three specialized units enables shipments to be broken down into daily non-towed trailers, optimizing leverage ratios for road transport fleets in the ports of Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, Lanzarote and La Palma.
Route performance and investment horizons
The routing architecture of the cargo division ensures daily connections between the main logistics hubs of the capital islands and the eastern province, adding three specific weekly rotations for the La Palma market. This regional structure is strategically integrated with the Iberian Peninsula corridor, enabling door-to-door links with the port of Huelva in time windows of less than 48 hours. Transit speed acts as a critical competitive advantage for the urgent parcel segment and perishable mass-consumption products.
The business performance of this division, reflected in the 915,168 tonnes moved since May 2024, confirms the viability of decoupling between high-speed passenger traffic and conventional maritime freight. Using vessels with longer turnaround times at docks expands operating windows and absorbs industrial demand peaks that fast vessels cannot handle due to technical limitations related to axle load weight and structural volume.
In the medium term, the performance of assets and the income ceiling of this logistics model will remain tied to the capacity of regional port infrastructures to absorb demand and to customs agility under the Economic and Fiscal Regime of the Canary Islands. The downward stabilization in tax refunds supports the idea that efficiency per linear metre of cargo hold is consolidating as the key financial metric for controlling distribution activity in the mid-Atlantic.
Entry Fred. Olsen’s million-dollar move to bypass AIEM: the secret investors are watching in Canary Islands was first published on canarymaritime.com.
