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.
Greek owners control the largest fleet on earth and fly most of it under other flags. UNCTAD's 2025 Review of Maritime Transport puts Greek-owned ships at about 16 percent of world deadweight tonnage. The Greek flag itself is a national register, absent from the ITF flag of convenience list, with a rule at its center that most flags do not have: your individual employment contract is mandatorily governed by the collective agreement it refers to. Under this flag, the single most important line in your SEA is the one that names the agreement. That is the core of Greece flag labor law. The collective agreement is not background paper. It is the wage.
Before you sign a contract under the Greek flag, know which laws apply. You can check your seafarer contract free in the Seafarer Contract Checker against MLC 2006 and the verified Greece flag facts.
The new code
Since May 2023 the governing law is the Code of Private Maritime Law, Law 5020/2023. Articles 165 to 189 cover the seafarer's employment contract, with separate articles for the master. Greek collective agreements are negotiated per vessel category and rank between the owners' associations and the seafarers' federation PNO, and the code subordinates your individual terms to the applicable one, on top of the MLC as ratified in Greece.
Article 181 contains a protection worth crossing oceans for: the local representative who signs your contract in Greece is jointly and fully liable with the shipowner for wages, medical care, sickness wages and disability or death compensation. If the owner behind a single-ship company evaporates, the signature on your contract still points at someone reachable. Keep the signed page.
What to look for in the SEA
The clause you want sits near the top of the contract, often a single line naming the applicable Greek collective agreement for the vessel category and your rank. That line is doing all the work. Ask the crewing agent two questions before anything else: which collective agreement, and which edition. Greek agreements are renegotiated between the owners' associations and PNO, the Panhellenic Seamen's Federation, so a scale from two years ago is not your scale. Get the current wage table for your rank in writing, next to the contract, not promised for later.
If the SEA names no agreement at all, stop. On most flags a missing reference is sloppy paperwork. Under the Greek flag it removes the exact mechanism the law built your wage on. A second engineer in a Piraeus crewing office who cannot get a straight answer to "which agreement" has learned everything needed about that office.
Article 181 in practice
The joint liability rule only pays out if you can prove who signed. Photograph every stamped page before you leave the office, note the name and address of the representative, and send the scans to your own email. If the single-ship company behind the vessel folds mid-contract, that photo of a signature in Greece is the difference between a claim against a mailbox in a distant registry and a claim against a person with an office you can find.
The two-tier reality
Greek law requires a Greek core crew on Greek-flag ships: five Greek seamen of any rank, the master included, plus a merchant marine academy cadet on ships up to about 40,000 gross register tons, six plus one above that. Around that core, the wage picture split in recent years. Parliament amended the law so that owners of oceangoing Greek-flag ships above 3,000 deadweight tons may apply ITF-negotiated international wage agreements, instead of the higher Greek PNO scales, for ranks up to second mate and third engineer. Opposition parties called it galley wages. For a Filipino third officer and a Greek third officer on the same deck, the applicable agreement, and therefore the payslip, can differ. Which tier you are on is written in your SEA. Read it before you fly.
Which tier are you on
The test is mechanical. Oceangoing Greek-flag ship above 3,000 deadweight tons, rank up to second mate or third engineer: the owner may apply an ITF-negotiated agreement instead of the PNO scale. Master, chief mate, chief and second engineer: PNO territory. So the question for the agent is short. "Is my wage the PNO scale or an ITF agreement, and can I see the scale?" Both answers are legal. Only one of them is your payslip.
An ITF agreement is still a negotiated union agreement, and its rates sit above the bare ILO minimum wage floor that MLC references. Where that floor stands this year, and how far collective scales climb past it, is in our guide to the seafarer minimum wage in 2026. The lower tier is legal. The tier is chosen before you sign, and the choice is visible in the SEA if you look.
The record
On port state control Greece slid from 3rd on the Paris MoU list built on 2022 data to 13th a year later, still White List. The administration behind your contract is the Ministry of Maritime Affairs, and the verified contacts are on our Greece flag page.
For an EU comparison, look at Malta. Both are EU flags, both answer to MLC 2006 and to Paris MoU inspectors. But Malta, the largest register in the EU, is an open registry on the ITF flag of convenience list, and Greece is not. How Malta answers the same wage and enforcement questions is in our Malta flag labor law guide.
Greece flag labor law and MLC compliance
Greece deposited its ratification of the Maritime Labour Convention on 4 January 2013, as the 32nd ILO member state and the tenth EU state to ratify. The convention landed on top of a national system that in most areas already went further. Flag state enforcement sits with the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Insular Policy, and the inspection arm is the Hellenic Coast Guard through its Ships Inspection General Directorate.
Greek-flag ships of 500 gross tonnage and above carry a Maritime Labour Certificate with a Declaration of Maritime Labour Compliance. Inside Greece, inspections run through the port authorities. Outside Greece, they run through the Naval Attache offices, and a filed complaint can trigger an extraordinary inspection, general or targeted. The Coast Guard's 2024 annual report lists 41 authorized MLC inspectors for the flag.
At the gangway this means the paper trail is inspectable. Your SEA, the wage accounts, the rest hour records: an inspector can ask for all of it, and so can you. The onboard complaint procedure required by MLC Regulation 5.1.5 must exist on a Greek ship like on any other flag, and the master has to hand you a copy of it with your contract documents.
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.
Before you sign: the Greek flag checklist
Find the collective agreement reference and get the current scale for your rank. Confirm the sickness and disability clauses match the code. If a manning agent in Piraeus signed, keep every stamped page, because Article 181 makes that signature valuable. The wider flag landscape is in our flags of convenience guide, and the universal checks in 10 Red Flags in a Seafarer Contract.
- Name the agreement: the SEA must state which Greek collective agreement governs it. No reference, no signature.
- Get the scale: the current wage table for your rank, in writing, from the crewing agent.
- Know your tier: PNO scale or ITF agreement. Ask directly and compare the numbers.
- Check the code clauses: sickness wages, medical care, disability and death compensation must match Law 5020/2023.
- Secure Article 181: photograph every stamped page and record who signed in Greece.
- Ask about the certificate: a ship of 500 gross tonnage and above must carry a Maritime Labour Certificate.
- Run every clause through the free contract checker linked above before you book the flight.
The paperwork is the hard part of sign-on. The bag is easier. A European sailor t-shirt for the flight out, a European sailor hoodie for the bridge wing at 0400. Whatever tier the payslip lands on, the watch is the same watch.
The 90 second version
This flag in one video:
How the Greece flag rates in port state control
Port state control keeps score on every flag. The regional inspection regimes publish each year which registers get detained most, and the ITF keeps its own list of flags of convenience. This is where Greece stands on the current lists:
- Paris MoU (Europe and Canada): white list, rank 25 of 69, performance list valid July 1, 2026 to July 6, 2027.
- Tokyo MoU (Asia Pacific): high performance, inspections and detentions 2022 to 2024.
- ITF: not listed as a flag of convenience, 2025 list.
- MLC 2006: party to the Convention.
These lists count detentions, not contracts. A white list flag can still sit under a bad SEA, and a black list flag tells you how much backing to expect from the administration when something goes wrong on board. The current rating of every flag we cover stands on the Greece flag page, and the app report names MLC 2006 plus the flag at the top of every check, with the same rating next to it.
Source note
Law 5020/2023, Code of Private Maritime Law (analyses by Watson Farley & Williams and Greek maritime law firms), Hellenic Ministry of Shipping crew composition documents, Seatrade Maritime on the ITF wage amendment, and Paris MoU performance lists.
The ratification date is from the ILO's record of Greece's MLC ratification. Inspection procedure and inspector numbers are from the Hellenic Coast Guard annual MLC report. The fleet share figure is from UNCTAD's Review of Maritime Transport. This article is editorial context for working crew, not legal advice. For a live dispute under a Greek-flag contract, contact the ITF or a maritime lawyer before you act.
FAQ
Is Greece a flag of convenience?
No. The Greek flag is a national register and does not appear on the ITF flag of convenience list. Greek owners do place most of their ships under other flags, but a Greek-flag ship itself sails under Greek law with a Greek core crew requirement.
What labor law applies on a Greek-flagged ship?
Greece flag labor law rests on the Code of Private Maritime Law, Law 5020/2023, with Articles 165 to 189 covering the seafarer's employment contract. Your individual contract is subordinated to the applicable Greek collective agreement, and MLC 2006 applies as ratified by Greece.
Do all seafarers on Greek ships get Greek union wages?
No. On oceangoing Greek-flag ships above 3,000 deadweight tons, owners may apply ITF-negotiated agreements instead of the higher PNO scales for ranks up to second mate and third engineer. Which agreement applies to you is written in your SEA.
Does MLC 2006 apply to Greek-flagged ships?
Yes. Greece ratified the Maritime Labour Convention on 4 January 2013. Greek-flag ships of 500 gross tonnage and above carry a Maritime Labour Certificate, inspected by the Hellenic Coast Guard's Ships Inspection General Directorate.
Who is liable if a Greek shipowner does not pay wages?
Under Article 181 of Law 5020/2023, the local representative who signed your contract in Greece is jointly and fully liable with the shipowner for wages, medical care, sickness wages and disability or death compensation. Keep every signed and stamped page as proof.
7SHORT1LONG® is a Seafarer Identity Brand. On a Greek ship, the agreement is the wage. Name it.
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