Registration opens for shipowners in October
From October 2026 owners and managers can register a ship through EnSign with a registry that runs on it: one account, the flag's own checklist, and documents checked before you submit.
Victor Mamalis · · 3 min read
Registries began taking applications through EnSign in September. In October the other side of the register opens: owners, managers and the brokers who act for them will be able to create an account, choose a flag on its published record, and file a registration to any registry that runs on EnSign — from a single day boat to a fleet under several flags.
What opens.
One account for every flag your ships carry, so a manager with vessels under three registries sees three registers in one place rather than three portals. The flag's own checklist, in the registry's own words, shown before you submit — so the requirements are known at the start and not discovered one reply at a time. And every document read on arrival: a name that does not match, a figure that disagrees with a certificate, a page that is missing, all surfaced while the file is still yours to fix.
Know what the flag requires before you submit. File once. Hold the certificate.
What you can do now.
The directory is open, with thirty flags on their Paris MoU standing and their published fees and timelines, and three can be compared side by side. The walk-through shows the journey from account to certificate, step by step. Brokers and managers who file for others have a page of their own, because a broker's month is different from an owner's.
What does not change.
The flag decides. A registration filed through EnSign is decided by the registry's own officers on the registry's own rules; EnSign prepares the file and keeps the record, and nothing is approved, rejected or issued by software. Fees are the registry's, published by the registry, and shown as published. What changes is only the part that was never anyone's job: the gap between what the flag needs and what the file contains.
October, then. The account comes first, and the sign-up will be live the day the doors open.
