More flexible ship's manning

As of now, shipping companies may also man their German-flagged vessels with masters from non-EU countries. To do so, they must create new training spots. The Exceptional Permission from BG Verkehr applies on a shipping-company-specific basis and may be issued for a term of up to 5 years.

Preventing flag changes while simultaneously creating incentives for more maritime training – that is the goal of the new, more flexible safe manning regulations, which took effect on 11 September following an amendment to the Safe Manning Ordinance (Schiffsbesetzungsverordnung). From now on, shipping companies may also employ third-country masters and ship officers on their German-flagged seagoing vessels under the conditions listed below.

In principle, the requirement that a master must be an EU/EEA national and, for ships of 8,000 GT or larger, that a ship officer must be an EU/EEA national, continues to apply under the German Flag. However, shipping companies may now also man their German-flagged vessels with masters and ship officers who are not EU/EEA nationals (third-country nationals).

This requires an Exceptional Permission by the Ship Safety Division of the BG Verkehr, which is granted under the following three conditions:

No EU/EEA master/ship officer is available on the domestic maritime labour market (this was always the case in the last few years).
The shipowner assures BG Verkehr that it is currently unable to promote any ship officers to the rank of master.
The shipowner establishes two training spots for each EU/EEA master or ship officer to be replaced. These may include:

Ship's mechanic apprentices
Officer assistants (NOA, TOA, ETOA)
Junior officers (who graduated from a German maritime training facility no more than 5 years ago).

If these requirements are met, the shipowner will receive the Exceptional Permission via email from the BG Verkehr to employ non-EU/EEA masters/ship officers. The Exceptional Permission is granted to the shipping company and is not tied to a specific vessel. It can therefore be used flexibly within the company’s own fleet, as long as the requirements regarding the number of training spots to be created are met. The Exceptional Permission is initially valid for 6 months; if the shipowner establishes the training spots, the BG Verkehr extends the Exceptional Permission for an additional 54 months (= 5 years minus 6 months).

For each master or ship officer, two training spots must be created and permanently manned. For shipping companies with vessels exclusively under 500 GT, only one new spot each needs to be created.

Further details about the new flexible procedure can be found in our section "Ship's manning".