Offshore Manual
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Offshore Yacht & Ship Registration
In recent years there has been a great transfer of yacht/ship registration from traditional areas like Britain, Norway and Greece to offshore shipping jurisdictions such as Panama, Liberia, the Isle of Man, Cyprus and the British West Indies.
Apart from the lower registration fees it may also be possible to rent or charter a vessel or conduct any trade business completely free from tax.
The registered owner of a vessel in an offshore jurisdiction can be an individual or a corporation and most vessels (both commercial and private), irrespective of the nationality of the maker or owner, may be registered.
Registering a commercial or private yacht/ship under an offshore jurisdiction provides a number of financial and business advantages for vessels that are engaged in international trade or will be navigating international waters.
Offshore companies can be used to register fleets of ships so that each ship is owned by a different company. In this way the other ships in the fleet will be protected against any debts owed by any of its sister ships and when its time to sell one of the ships you can easily transferee the ownership of the offshore company to the new owner and generate all profit will be completely free from tax.
Paris MOU's black, grey and white list
The Paris MOU has been a blueprint for the introduction of regional regimes of port State control in the Asia
Pacific Rim (Tokyo MOU), Latin America (Viña del Mar), the Mediterranean, Caribbean and other regional
port State control regimes. Canada and Russia are members of both the Paris MOU and the Tokyo MOU.
The “Black List” for 2006 contains 16 flags States, two fewer than last year. The 2006 “White List” includes 37 flag States, three more than last year.
The “White List” represents those quality flags with a consistently low detention record. The United Kingdom, Sweden and Finland are placed highest in terms of performance. Azerbaijan has moved down from the “White List” to the “Grey List”.
The “White List”:
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia,
Israel,
Antilles, Netherlands,
Malta,
Gibraltar,
Estonia,
Switzerland,
Cayman Islands,
Iran Islamic Republic of,
United States of America.,
Cyprus,
Greece,
Barbados,
Belgium,
Antigua and Barbuda,
Spain,
Portugal,
Hong Kong, China,
Bahamas,
Liberia,
Netherlands,
Luxembourg,
Italy,
Norway,
Singapore,
Denmark,
Isle of Man,
Philippines,
Marshall Islands,
Germany,
Bermuda,
China,
Finland,
Sweden,
United Kingdom,
New on the “White List” are Estonia, Switzerland and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Flag States with an average performance are shown on the “Grey List”. Their appearance on this list may act as an incentive to improve and move to the “White List”. At the same time flag States at the lower end of the “Grey List” should be careful not to neglect control over their ships and risk ending up on the “Black List” next year.
The shortening “Black list” and growing “White List” suggests there is a movement towards quality flags.
A flag’s ranking is taken into account when targeting ships for inspection and ships flying flags listed on the “Black list” are liable for banning from the region after multiple detentions.
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Offshore Yacht & Ship Jurisdictions
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