German merchant fleet

Reliable German merchant fleet statistics

The Bundesamt für Seeschifffahrt und Hydrographie (Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency) maintains the German shipping register and is the central registration office for all German seagoing ships. This includes also ships registered temporarily under a foreign flag.

The following statistics, kept by the BSH, include all seagoing ships of 100 GT and above, registered in the German shipping registers:

• Status of the German merchant fleet 
  These statistics provide monthly data of the German merchant fleet, starting from the corresponding month of the preceding calendar year. Subdivided by kinds of ships (e.g. dry cargo ships) and further broken down into ship types (e.g. container ships), the numbers and gross tonnage (GT) for the individual ship types are shown.
  The numbers and GT for ships registered temporarily under a foreign flag are shown each as a total at the end of the table. The foreign flags flown by these ships are shown with the statistics below.
  
  
• Statistics of ships registered temporarily under a foreign flag (bareboat charter) 
  These statistics cover the preceding month, broken down by bareboat charter flags. For each foreign flag numbers (red) and GT (blue) are shown in separate graphs and additionally in a table.
  
  
• Detailed status of the German merchant fleet
  These statistics show for the preceding month numbers and gross tonnage (GT) of German-flagged ships for each individual ship type and the share of ships listed in the International Shipping Register (ISR). In addition numbers and GT are shown for ships registered temporarily under a foreign flag.
  
  
• Development of the share of the German flag and of foreign flags
  These statistics for each of the previous 12 months show a graphic comparison of numbers (red) and GT (blue) of ships under the German flag versus ships under foreign flags and the relevant figures in tables.

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You can request further statistical data about the German merchant fleet via our mailbox statistik-deumarda@bsh.de;  please direct requests about individual German owned ships to einzelanfragen-deumarda@bsh.de.

This information requires the proof of legitimate interest and is subject to a fee (Gebührenordnung zum Informationsfreiheitsgesetz). Therefore, please explain why you are interested in the data.

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