The additional cost will be passed on to families. The Las Palmas Port Services Committee met on Wednesday under the chairmanship of Francisco Trujillo, who is reportedly operating with Beatriz Calzada’s approval. The virtual meeting had a single substantive item on its agenda: the final consultation on the revised proposal to update the maximum rates for the port service for cargo handling, following the conclusion of the public hearing process. The financial report sets out a 27.03% increase in rates at the Mid-Atlantic’s main logistics hub. Fedeport, the CCE and the Las Palmas Chamber of Commerce all support the price increases, while Asocelpa has submitted objections accepting one of them.
The Port of Las Palmas has activated an upward revision of 27.03% in the maximum rates for the port service for cargo handling. The measure updates a regulatory framework that has been frozen since January 2009. After 17 years without changes to the rates, the Port Authority is invoking Law 2/2015 on de-indexation and Royal Decree 55/2017 to justify a cost-based update. The accounting exercise highlights the tensions between rising operating input costs and the restrictions imposed by public-spending regulations.
Cost Shock
The economic and financial report prepared for the proceedings reflects differing inflationary pressures depending on the component analyzed. At the top of the cost increases is the electricity supply for the Canary Islands’ leading port in TEUs, whose variation between January 2009 and January 2026 amounted to a 149.68% increase, according to National Statistics Institute (INE) indexes, rising from 44.822 to 111.913.
This figure is compounded by the impact on fuel procurement costs—standard diesel in Gran Canaria—which rose by 103.08%, from €0.616 per liter in the first week of 2009 to €1.251 in week 10 of 2026. Transport-related insurance premiums increased by 53.56% during the period under review. At the opposite end were machinery and equipment repair and maintenance services in the Canary Islands, whose index rose by 15.86% between 2013 and 2026.
Legal Squeeze
The technical contradiction in the proceedings emerges when the personnel item is examined. Costs associated with workers at the Port Employment Center (CPE)—classified in the accounts under ‘Work performed by other companies’ and accounting for 50.39% of the generic structure—showed a theoretical variation of 33.80% based on the change in the Consumer Price Index in the Canary Islands between January 2009 and January 2026. Similarly, the direct personnel expenses item, with a weighting of 12.67%, recorded a 26.68% increase according to the INE’s Labor Cost per Worker for CNAE-09 between the first quarter of 2009 and the fourth quarter of 2025.
However, Article 5 of Royal Decree 55/2017 establishes an insurmountable limit: labor costs that can be passed on to the revised rates may not exceed the cumulative increase in public-sector employees’ compensation set out in the General State Budget Laws. Between 2010 and 2025, this official trajectory amounted to a cumulative 18.45%. The Port Authority was therefore forced to reduce the actual labor impact, applying the legal ceiling of 18.45% exclusively to both personnel items.
Operational Asymmetry
The final calculation weights each variation according to the selected cost structure. Despite recording the largest absolute increases, electricity, with a weighting of 3.80%, contributes 5.68 percentage points to the overall rise, while fuel, with a weighting of 7.50%, adds 7.73 points. The CPE item, for its part, contributes an additional 9.30% to the rate. The sum of the weighted variations consolidates the proposed 27.03% increase.
The update is applied asymmetrically to the total bill paid by operators. The ordinance increases the rate for port operations without altering the business charge, which is set at amounts ranging from €0.00 to €1.66 depending on the service. Thus, services such as unloading low-temperature frozen fish boxes will see their base rate rise from €83.89 to €106.56 per ton, while the charge remains unchanged at €0.79, taking the total from €84.68 to €107.35. At container terminals, operations using a spreader will rise from €54.09 to €68.71 in the rate, while the fixed charge will remain at €0.79, bringing the price per ton to €69.50, compared with the €54.88 in force since 2009.
The article ‘Operating at the Port of Las Palmas Becomes 27% More Expensive’ was first published on canarymaritime.com.
