Martin Lex is the pen name of the 7S1L safety desk: SOLAS, lifesaving and firefighting gear, muster drills, emergency signals and safe work on board. Portrait is illustrative.
Manning agency fees are the shortest chapter in maritime labour law. The 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.
This article walks through the rule, the tricks used to get around it, and the complaint routes that exist when someone has already taken your money. It is editorial context from a crew brand, not legal advice. The sources are at the end.
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.
The Convention is the floor, and national rules can only build on top of it. The Philippines goes further than the MLC: under the 2016 POEA rules the pre-employment medical at the employer's designated clinic, the visa, and the trainings the employer requires are all listed as costs of the principal, in writing. More on that below.
What MLC Regulation 1.4 demands from the agency itself
The fee ban is one line inside a longer rulebook. Regulation 1.4 and Standard A1.4 of the MLC set out what a private recruitment and placement service has to be before it may put a single AB or fourth engineer on a ship. Flag states that ratified the Convention must write these duties into national law and supervise them.
An agency operating legally must, at minimum:
- Hold a license or certification under a national system, and keep it. The competent authority has to supervise all recruitment and placement services on its territory, not just register them once (Standard A1.4, paragraphs 2 and 6).
- Keep an up-to-date register of every seafarer it recruits or places, open to inspection by the authority.
- Let you examine your employment agreement before and after signing, tell you your rights and duties under it before engagement, and give you a copy. If a recruiter waves you toward a signature line with the pages folded back, that alone breaks the Standard. Our guide to employment agreement red flags covers what to look for once the contract is actually in your hands.
- Verify that you are qualified and hold the documents for the job, and that the contract complies with the law and any collective bargaining agreement that applies.
- Run no blacklists. The Standard prohibits any means, mechanisms or lists intended to prevent or deter seafarers from gaining employment they are qualified for. "Complain about us and you will never sail again" is not a warning. It is a violation.
- Examine and respond to complaints about its own conduct, and report unresolved ones to the authority.
- Carry a system of protection, insurance or equivalent, that compensates you for monetary loss if the agency or the shipowner fails to meet its obligations under your contract. The agency must tell you about this system before engagement. Ask. A recruiter who has never heard of it is telling you something.
One more provision matters for crew on open registries. Standard A1.4 paragraph 9 requires shipowners under a ratified flag who use agencies in countries where the MLC does not apply to ensure, as far as practicable, that those agencies meet the same standards. The flag on the stern decides which state stands behind that duty, which is why it belongs in the same conversation as flags of convenience and what they mean for your contract.
How illegal manning agency fees are 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.
Four scenes from the recruitment desk
The disguises above are categories. This is what they look like on the day.
The training package before the contract
A cadet finishes maritime school and applies for a first sea job. The recruiter is friendly, the vessel is real, and then comes the condition: one more certificate is needed, bookable only through the agency's partner center, at twice the market rate, paid before any contract exists. The course may even take place. The markup is the placement fee, laundered through a classroom. Standard A1.4 bans charges borne "directly or indirectly", and this is what indirectly means. Anyone still weighing whether the industry is worth entering at all should first read our real look at working at sea jobs, then come back and hold that first offer against this rule.
The processing fee at the counter
An oiler with two contracts behind him is asked for USD 300 "processing" before his documents move. The receipt, if one exists, says documentation assistance. Under the Philippine rules the processing costs of deployment sit with the principal by name. Under the MLC the seafarer's side of the ledger has three lines, and processing is not one of them. The word on the receipt does not change the law.
The deduction that follows you on board
Sometimes the fee never appears ashore. It hides in the wage account instead: an allotment that arrives short every month, a line on the wage statement marked "agency" or "admin", a promise that it stops after the fourth month. A deduction for recruitment is the same illegal fee collected in slow motion, and it is the version you can prove most easily, because the wage statements the shipowner must give you document it in the shipowner's own numbers. Keep every one.
The ticket deposit
A steward gets a cruise job through a page that looks like a real concessionaire. The offer letter asks her to buy her own flight to the joining port, refundable on board, plus a deposit "to secure the position against no-shows". Real employers arrange joining travel for crew. A company that asks for a deposit against your own no-show has already told you it is not planning to employ you.
The Philippines: the DMW rule leaves no gap
No country sends more seafarers through manning agencies than the Philippines, and no country states the fee rule more bluntly. The 2016 Revised POEA Rules and Regulations Governing the Recruitment and Employment of Seafarers, today enforced by the Department of Migrant Workers (DMW), which absorbed the POEA, define charging or accepting "directly or indirectly any amount of money, goods or services, or any fee or bond for any purpose from an applicant seafarer" as an act of illegal recruitment. Not a licensing footnote. Illegal recruitment.
The same rules split the costs in plain language. The manning fee is charged to the principal. Processing costs of deployment, including the pre-employment medical at the employer's designated clinic, visas, and the trainings the employer requires, are the principal's as well. The seafarer carries documentation costs of statutory requirements: passport, the seafarer's identification and record book, NBI, police or barangay clearance, and the birth certificate. A catch-all section closes the door: no other charges, in whatever form, manner or purpose. The rules even cap interest on loans an agency arranges for allowable fees at 8 percent per year, because debt bondage through a "helpful" loan is an old trick with a paper trail.
Every licensed Philippine manning agency can be verified on the DMW website before any document leaves your hand. If the agency is not in the list, the conversation is over.
Free crew appSeafarer Contract CheckCheck your contract clause by clause against MLC 2006 and flag state regulations. The check is free. On iPhone, Android or in the browser.
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.
India and Indonesia: same rule, different registers
India licenses recruiters under the Merchant Shipping (Recruitment and Placement of Seafarers) Rules, 2016. Every legitimate agency holds an RPSL number issued by the Directorate General of Shipping, and the rules carry the MLC's fee prohibition into Indian law. The RPSL register is public. An office in Mumbai or Chennai that cannot show its number, or shows one that does not match the register, is not an agency. It is a room with a desk.
Indonesia, the world's second largest supplier of seafarers by most counts, ratified the MLC through Law No. 15 of 2016, so the fee ban of Standard A1.4 applies to Indonesian crew as well. The licensing side has been in motion for years, shifting between the transport ministry's SIUPPAK system and the migrant worker framework. The moving parts change nothing about the money: an Indonesian rating owes no recruiter a single rupiah for a job, whichever ministry issued the license that week.
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.
- Ask which system of protection covers you if the agency or shipowner defaults. Standard A1.4 requires one, and requires the agency to tell you about it before engagement.
- 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.
If you already paid: evidence first, then the complaint
Money already handed over is not gone by default. It is gone if nothing is on record. Build the record before you argue with anyone.
- Keep every receipt, including the ones with the wrong words on them. "Documentation assistance" on paper, USD 300 in the ledger: the mislabel is evidence, not cover.
- Screenshot the chats with the amounts, account numbers and dates visible, and back them up off the phone. Recruiters delete Facebook pages faster than authorities open cases.
- Write down names: the person at the desk, the person on WhatsApp, the clinic, the training center, the bank account holder. Batchmates who paid at the same desk are witnesses, and a complaint signed by five crew is harder to file away than one.
- Keep every wage statement if the fee runs as a deduction on board. The shipowner's own accounting is the strongest exhibit you will ever hold.
Then pick the route that fits where you are. Ashore in the recruiting country, complain to the licensing authority: the DMW in the Philippines, the Directorate General of Shipping in India. On board, a deduction is a breach of your employment agreement, and the on-board complaint procedure under MLC Regulation 5.1.5 exists exactly for this, in writing, with a copy for your own file. In port, MLC Regulation 5.2.2 gives you an onshore complaint route: report the breach to a port State control officer, in any port country that ratified the Convention, and the flag state administration of the vessel is a complaint target as well. At every stage the ITF takes reports at jobscam@itf.org.uk, and an ITF inspector in port can look at the wage account with you.
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: paste the contract into the browser, and about a minute later the report flags recruitment charges next to the exact provision they break. No account, and the contract never leaves your browser. If you have not used it before, the walkthrough on how to use the MLC Contract Check takes two minutes.
Then sign-on day comes the way it should: gangway, clean contract, nothing owed to anyone. Walk up with a seafarer hoodie you chose yourself and a sign-on set nobody forced you to buy. That should be the only money that changed hands on the way to the ship.
Source note
This article is editorial context from a crew brand, not legal advice. For a decision about your own case, talk to your union, an ITF inspector, or a maritime lawyer. Legal sources used here: Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, as amended, Regulation 1.4 and Standard A1.4 (ILO). 2016 Revised POEA Rules and Regulations Governing the Recruitment and Employment of Seafarers, enforced today by the Department of Migrant Workers. Directorate General of Shipping: RPSL licensing under the Merchant Shipping (Recruitment and Placement of Seafarers) Rules, 2016. ILO: Indonesia ratifies the Maritime Labour Convention. 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.
FAQ
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.
Who pays for STCW training courses?
Your basic STCW qualification is your own professional cost, like any license. But national rules can shift training costs to the employer: the Philippine rules list the trainings the employer requires as the principal's cost. An agency that makes the job conditional on an overpriced course at its own partner center is collecting an illegal fee through the classroom.
What is the difference between a manning fee and manning agency fees charged to crew?
A manning fee is what the agency legally charges the shipowner for its recruitment service. Manning agency fees charged to the seafarer, under any label, are prohibited by MLC Standard A1.4. Same desk, opposite directions, and only one of them is legal.
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.
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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