Official Statistics

Shipping fleet statistics: 2023

Size of the UK and world shipping fleets on 31 December 2023.

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Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to. You are welcome to contact us directly by emailing with any comments about how we meet these standards.

Change to data provider

The world fleet information from 2022 onward used in this release and publication tables is based on data supplied by Sea/ by Maritech while previous years are based on data provided by IHS.

UK shipping interests covered in section 3 has been updated however, data is not available for 2022. More details about the changes to our data can be found in notes and definitions.

Gross tonnage on the UK Ship Register was 10.4 million at end of December 2023, an increase of 1%, compared to the end of December 2022.

Based on commercial data supplied by Sea/ by Maritech, at the end of 2023, the UK registered trading fleet:

  • was the 24th largest trading fleet in the world and accounted for 0.4% of the world fleet deadweight tonnage

  • accounted for 23% of deadweight tonnage of the Red Ensign Group trading fleet, which as a whole would be the world’s 11th largest trading fleet

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Updates to this page

Published 6 March 2024

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