Abstract Short sea shipping (SSS) is the maritime transport of goods over relatively short distances, as opposed to the intercontinental cross-ocean deep sea shipping. The goal of the current paper is to identify SSS growth potential and the univariate regression analysis indicates that the following variables influence total SSS volume in European countries: land area, coastline, total number of SSS ports, number of small SSS ports, number of large SSS ports, number of inhabitants, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), GDP per head, road length and rail length. An additional multivariate regression analysis indicates that more than 78% of the variance in the total SSS volume per country can be explained by variations in the number of large SSS ports and the GDP per head. Finally, future prospects for SSS indicate that most countries show (theoretical) potential to further increase their SSS volume calling for tailor-made policies to utilize this potential.