China–Russia River Crossings Closed for Winter 2026: Tongjiang, Fuyuan and Raohe Shut, and Where Cargo Goes Now

Every year, at some point in the first half of November, the Amur and Ussuri river ports stop working. The ice comes, the channel closes, and the crossings that carry a meaningful share of north-east China's exports to the Russian Far East simply shut until the spring thaw. In 2026 it happened in a five-day window, and it happened early enough to catch shippers who had cargo staged for a mid-November departure.

What closed, and when

These are ice-season closures, not policy decisions. The river freezes, the channel is no longer navigable, and the port authority closes it. The date moves each year by a week or two depending on temperature, which is precisely why shippers get caught: a booking that worked on 1 November is worthless on 8 November.

Who is actually affected

The three closures hit different cargo profiles, and it is worth being precise about which one applies to you.

• Tongjiang: bulk and project cargo — timber, coal, fertiliser, construction materials, oversized machinery — plus agricultural exports. Because the rail bridge remains open, the impact is mainly on barge economics: river freight is cheaper per tonne than rail for bulk, and that advantage disappears in winter.
• Fuyuan: agricultural products, especially soybeans and grain moving both directions, and general cargo for the Khabarovsk region. No bridge means no winter alternative at this location; cargo must reroute to Tongjiang rail, Suifenhe or Heihe.
• Raohe: a smaller crossing serving the Bikin and Luchegorsk area of Primorye. Volumes are modest, and most cargo can shift to Suifenhe or Grodekovo without much difficulty.

Which crossings stay open all winter

Two of these deserve emphasis because they are underused. The Heihe–Blagoveshchensk highway bridge, which opened in June 2022, carries road freight across the Amur all winter and queues are typically one to three days — an order of magnitude better than Zabaikalsk. The Tongjiang rail bridge likewise runs year-round and gives a rail option at a location most shippers only think of as a river port.

For cargo that used to go by river to Khabarovsk and points east, the realistic winter routing is Heihe–Blagoveshchensk by road, or Tongjiang by rail, then onward by the Trans-Siberian. It is longer and more expensive than the summer barge, but it works, and it is available today.

The rerouting map

The cost impact is not symmetrical. Bulk cargo that loses the barge option pays the most in percentage terms, because river freight was the cheapest mode available and rail is a step up. Containerised general cargo that can move by road through Heihe pays less, because the road option was always there and only the queue changes.

The second deadline: the Russian New Year shutdown

Rerouting is only half of the November problem. Russian New Year holidays in 2026–2027 run from 31 December to 10 January, with normal operations resuming on 11 January. That is eleven days in which customs, terminals, railways and most warehouses in Russia are effectively closed or running a skeleton crew.

Combine the two calendars and the arithmetic is unforgiving. A container that leaves China on 10 December by rail takes 25–35 days to reach Moscow or Khabarovsk, which puts arrival squarely in the holiday window. It will sit, and storage will be charged, and nobody will be at the consignee's warehouse to receive it.

What this means for rates

Three pressures are stacking in the same four weeks: the river closures pushing volume onto road and rail, the Russian holiday shutdown compressing the delivery window, and the pre-Spring-Festival rush that always begins in December. The Far East corridors — Heihe, Suifenhe, Hunchun — will tighten first because that is where the displaced river cargo goes.

If you have a December shipment to the Russian Far East, the honest advice is to book it this week rather than wait for a better rate. The rate is not going to get better; the space is going to get worse.

A worked example: what a missed cut-off actually costs

Numbers make the argument better than warnings do. Take a 40HQ of general cargo bound for Khabarovsk, booked on 1 November through Fuyuan at a river-freight rate of about USD 4,200.

Now the same cargo booked on 20 November instead of 1 November. By then the Heihe queue has lengthened, the space is gone, and the only option is rail through Tongjiang or Suifenhe with a 12–18 day transit — which lands the container in Khabarovsk between 2 and 8 January, inside the Russian holiday shutdown. Storage accrues from arrival, the consignee cannot receive, and the container is not released until 11 January at the earliest.

The difference between those two outcomes is not a better rate or a better carrier. It is eighteen days of noticing the problem earlier. That is the entire argument for treating the river closure calendar as a fixed input rather than as a piece of news.

Checklist for a winter Far East shipment

• Confirm which crossing your booking actually uses — river port, rail bridge or road bridge
• If the booking referenced a river port, get it reissued on a year-round crossing in writing
• Check whether the cargo is covered for storage at a Russian terminal over the holiday period
• Confirm the consignee's warehouse opening dates between 31 December and 10 January
• Book the Russian domestic leg before the cargo arrives, not after
• For bulk cargo displaced from barge, price rail and road side by side — the gap is narrower than expected in winter
• Verify the insurance covers the actual winter routing, including any transhipment
• Pre-alert the broker with the new crossing name and estimated arrival date

The river closures are predictable, which means they are also plannable. The shippers who lose money in November are the ones who treat the closure date as news rather than as a fixed item on the calendar.