Temporary Registration of Ships Under the Iranian Maritime System

Temporary Registration of Ships Under the Iranian Maritime System

As a general rule, ships are registered permanently within the registry of a given state. Temporary registration is an exception intended to address specific operational needs. Under the Iranian maritime framework, this exception is addressed in Articles 16 and 18 of the Iranian Maritime Code enacted in 1964.

These provisions cover, among other situations, ships located outside Iran that intend to travel to Iran for completion of registration procedures (often described as ships applying for registration), as well as ships under construction in Iran. In addition, although not expressly listed in the 1964 Code, leased ships in certain forms must, as a practical and legal necessity, be handled through temporary registration.

Legal Bases for Temporary Registration in Iran

Ships Under Construction and Ships Applying for Registration

Article 18 of the Iranian Maritime Code (1964)

Ships under construction, as contemplated by the Code, must be temporarily registered and issued a temporary registration certificate. The shipbuilder is required to prepare a declaration containing the vessel’s identifying number and detailed specifications and submit it to the competent maritime authority (the Ports and Maritime Organization). Once the vessel has completed testing and is delivered to the owner, the temporary registration certificate is revoked and returned.

The practical effect of this framework is that a ship being built in Iran is treated as Iranian for registration purposes until delivery by the builder. The policy rationale was not the existence of a large-scale modern shipbuilding industry at the time, but rather legislative support for domestic investors engaged in traditional shipbuilding activities along Iran’s northern and southern coasts. Shipbuilding is, in many respects, a technologically advanced industry concentrated in a limited number of states, including China, South Korea, and Germany.

Although Iran has made notable progress in recent years, including the establishment of shipbuilding and repair facilities, limitations in the production of large vessels have meant that domestic shipping companies still rely heavily on foreign shipbuilding markets for fleet acquisition and expansion. Accordingly, a ship purchased abroad, whether secondhand or newly built, must be brought into an Iranian port to complete the registration formalities and acquire Iranian nationality. For the voyage from the port of purchase to the destination port in Iran, the vessel typically requires a temporary registration certificate.

Temporary Registration for Ships Purchased Abroad

Article 16 of the Iranian Maritime Code (1964)

Under Article 16, Iranian consular representatives may, with authorization from the Ports and Maritime Organization and relying on technical certificates issued by recognized international classification institutions, issue a temporary registration certificate for ships that will ultimately be registered in Iran.

The validity of such a temporary certificate must correspond to the duration of the vessel’s voyage to an Iranian port for completion of registration formalities and must not exceed six months. A copy of the temporary certificate must be sent to the ship registry department of the Ports and Maritime Organization, and the original certificate must be delivered to that organization.

As reflected in this structure, the temporary registration certificate grants the vessel a temporary Iranian nationality with several defining features:

• It is granted only to ships permanently registered in Iran.
• It is temporary and tied to the voyage to an Iranian port, with a maximum validity of six months.
• It is issued solely to enable completion of registration formalities, not for commercial operations or any other purpose.
• Upon arrival at the designated destination port, it ceases to have legal effect.

In practice, because the original temporary certificate is typically held by the owner or the ship’s master and a copy remains with the issuing consular office, the original must be delivered promptly to the Ports and Maritime Organization upon arrival. The issuing consular office should also transmit a copy to the same authority. After these steps, the vessel is deemed to lack registration and nationality until it completes permanent registration and becomes entitled to fly the national flag.

Temporary Registration of Leased Ships

As noted above, although the legislator did not comprehensively list leased ships as a category of temporary registration in the 1964 Code, certain forms of ship leasing leave no practical alternative to temporary registration within the Iranian maritime system.

Among ship leasing arrangements, bareboat charter arrangements are the principal category for which a distinct registration approach is commonly required. For other forms of chartering, re-registration is generally not meaningful. Because many states impose ownership conditions for permanent registration, commonly requiring that at least 51 percent of the vessel be owned by nationals of the flag state, a vessel often cannot adopt the permanent nationality of another state while ownership remains unchanged. International practice and many national systems, therefore, rely on temporary registration mechanisms to address such cases.

Frequently Asked Questions