Written for seafarers Reviewed for accuracy by crew who have stood the watch.
The manning agency that puts you on a ship gets paid by the shipowner. Not by you. MLC 2006 Standard A1.4 leaves no room: no fees or other charges for recruitment or placement may be borne by the seafarer, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part. Three costs stay yours, and only these: the statutory medical certificate, your national seafarer's book, and your passport or similar personal travel documents. Visas are the shipowner's cost. The Convention says that in the same sentence.
That is the paper. The desk can look different. In a 2024 survey by the crewing platform Turtle and the Institute for Human Rights and Business, supported by the ITF and The Mission to Seafarers, 31 percent of seafarers said they had been asked to pay for a job at some point in their career, 28 percent in 2024 alone. Of those asked, 74 percent paid. Almost half paid between USD 500 and USD 5,000. The middle of that range is four months of basic pay for an AB on the 2026 ILO minimum wage. Some paid more than USD 10,000, and about 7 percent needed over five years to clear the debt.
What you may pay, and nothing else
- Your statutory medical certificate.
- Your national seafarer's book.
- Your passport or similar personal travel documents.
That list is closed. Visa costs sit with the shipowner by name. Your STCW certificates are your own qualification, and you pay a training center for them the way any professional pays for a license. Watch the bundle trick anyway: an agency that makes the job conditional on booking the course through its own partner, at its partner's price, is collecting the fee through the back door.
How the illegal fee is disguised
Nobody writes "placement fee" on a receipt anymore. The ITF's ShipBeSure guidance lists the usual costumes: a processing or registration fee, a documentation charge, a medical exam at the agency's own clinic for triple the going rate, a "refundable deposit", or airfare to join the ship that will supposedly be paid back on board. It never is. Payment is requested in cash or to a personal bank account, and on cruise jobs the first contact is often a Facebook page wearing a real company's logo.
One more number from the same survey: only one in five seafarers who were charged reported it to anyone. The agencies count on that silence.
Manila, 2022: what enforcement looks like
In August 2022 the Philippine Department of Migrant Workers suspended the licence of Global Marine and Offshore Resources Inc, a Manila agency that had charged seafarers USD 600 to 1,000 in placement fees that spring. The ITF had put the agency on its public red list first. The authority followed. The case carried a second lesson: four of the affected crew were also owed more than USD 11,900 in wages. An agency that breaks the fee rule at the door often breaks the wage clause at sea.
Check the agency before any money moves
- Look the agency up in the ITF ShipBeSure directory of registered agents, and check the red list while you are there.
- Philippine agencies need a DMW licence, Indian agencies an RPSL number from the Directorate General of Shipping. Both can be verified online before you sign anything.
- Ask for every cost in writing. A legitimate recruiter has nothing to hide on paper.
- Refuse cash and personal bank accounts. A company that wants money without a paper trail wants it for a reason.
- Search the agency name together with "scam" or "warning", and report job scams to the ITF at jobscam@itf.org.uk.
The fee question does not end at the agency desk. Some contracts carry it inside, as a wage deduction, a "documentation" line, or a clause that charges your flight home to you. Standard A1.4 is one of the rules our free MLC Contract Check tests: upload the SEA, pick the flag state, and the report flags recruitment charges next to the exact provision they break. No account needed.
Crew questions
Is it legal for a manning agency to charge a placement fee?
No. Under MLC 2006 Standard A1.4 no recruitment or placement fee may fall on the seafarer, and every flag state that ratified the Convention must enforce that. A processing fee, registration fee or deposit is the same fee wearing a different name.
Which costs am I allowed to pay myself?
Three: the statutory medical certificate, your national seafarer's book, and your passport or similar personal travel documents. Visas are the shipowner's cost under the same Standard.
I already paid a fee. What can I do?
Keep everything: receipts, chat screenshots, names, account numbers. Report the agency to its licensing authority, in the Philippines the DMW, and to the ITF at jobscam@itf.org.uk. If money is being deducted from your wages on board, use the on-board complaint procedure under MLC Regulation 5.1.5 and keep your wage statements.
How do I spot a fake agency?
Check the ShipBeSure registered-agents directory, verify the licence with the national authority, demand a written cost breakdown, and never pay cash. A real recruiter does not rush you from a Facebook ad to WhatsApp to a bank transfer inside a week.
Sources
Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, as amended, Standard A1.4 (ILO). ITF ShipBeSure: recruitment scams. Nautilus International: survey on illegal recruitment fees, 2024. ITF: Filipino authorities suspend recruitment agency after red list warning. The recruitment-fee rubric of our contract checker uses Standard A1.4.
7SHORT1LONG® is a Seafarer Identity Brand. We built the free MLC Contract Check because the rule at the agency desk is short enough to know by heart: the shipowner pays the agency, never you. From crew. For crew. YES, WE ARE CREW.
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