Port State Control in 2026: Detention Rates, Deficiency Patterns and Prevention

The Paris MoU 2025 record

Port State Control is the mechanism by which a coastal state checks that foreign ships in its ports comply with international conventions. It is the industry's most consistent, publicly reported measure of how well ships are actually being managed — and the 2025 numbers are not comfortable reading.

Two observations. First, 60% of inspections found at least one deficiency — roughly 3.1 deficiencies per inspection across the board. Second, the report notes that 2025 marked the fourth consecutive year of elevated detention rates relative to pre-pandemic levels. Elevated enforcement is now the baseline, not an anomaly.

What inspectors find

Roughly 38.5% of findings sit in three areas. The recurring specifics named in the report are unglamorous: ISM implementation failures, fire door maintenance, employment agreement documentation, engine room cleanliness and electrical installation defects.

None of those require capital investment. They require someone to walk the ship with a critical eye on a routine basis and close what they find.

How the regimes work

Regional memoranda of understanding coordinate PSC: the Paris MoU covers Europe and the North Atlantic, the Tokyo MoU the Asia-Pacific, with further regimes elsewhere and the US Coast Guard operating its own programme. Ships are targeted for inspection using a risk profile built from:

• Ship type and age
• Flag performance (white, grey and black lists)
• Recognised Organisation performance
• Company performance based on deficiency and detention history
• Time since last inspection
• Previous deficiency and detention record

The consequence is compounding: a company with a poor record gets inspected more often, which produces more findings, which worsens the record. Breaking that cycle takes sustained clean inspections over a long period.

The Paris MoU's 2025 report kept the White List at 40 flag states while noting elevated detainable deficiencies associated with certain Recognised Organisations — a signal that certification quality varies even where the headline rankings do not move.

Preparing properly

The wrong way: a pre-arrival scramble, a checklist run the night before, and the superintendent flying in.

The right way treats inspection readiness as the ordinary operating standard.

A practical routine

The last line is the one most fleets skip. A deficiency found on one ship is intelligence about the other nineteen.

Concentrated Inspection Campaigns

MoUs run annual campaigns on a specific theme, announced in advance. Preparing for the announced campaign topic is the cheapest available risk reduction, and a surprising number of operators do not track them.

During the inspection

1. Receive the inspector professionally. Antagonism produces thoroughness.
2. Master present or represented at all times, with a competent officer accompanying.
3. Documents ready and organised — certificates, records, plans, manuals.
4. Do not conceal. A detected concealment converts a deficiency into an integrity finding.
5. Record what is examined and said, contemporaneously.
6. Clarify findings before the inspector leaves. Ambiguous wording is much harder to address afterwards.
7. Notify the DPA and the manager immediately, not after departure.

After a detention

A detention is expensive in port time, charterer confidence, vetting standing and future inspection frequency. What separates good managers from the rest is not having zero detentions in history — it is what visibly changed after the last one.