EU flagged ships and approved registry

Access to Swedish coastal traffic for EU flagged ships is governed by Council Regulation (EEC) 3577/92 applying the principle of freedom to provide services to maritime transport within Member States (cabotage).

An important question in this context is which ship registers that can be considered as membership registers and within the scope of cabotage. Neither the regulation nor the Treaty of Rome give any guidance on this matter, but the Annex to the Community guidelines on State aid to maritime transport (97/C205/05) explicitly state what records are to be regarded as a Member State registries. This list is partly used to decide whether the ship is permitted to transport operations in Swedish coastal traffic.


The registers, with the support of these guidelines, which are considered permissible in the Swedish coastal traffic are:

  • All national registers of EU
  • NIS (Norwegian International Ship Register)
  • DIS ( Danish International Ship Register)
  • German International Shipping Register
  • Italian International Register
  • Madeira
  • Canary Islands
  • Gibraltar