Conventions

SOLAS explained

Published 28 August 2026 · updated 22 September 2026

Almost nobody on a broking desk reads SOLAS. What they read are the certificates it produces, and the dates on them, because a certificate that lapses in the middle of a voyage is a commercial problem long before it is a safety one. Knowing what the convention is made of is mostly a way of knowing which certificate answers which question.

What SOLAS is

The International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea is the oldest and the most important of the merchant shipping treaties. The first version was drawn up in 1914 in response to the loss of the Titanic. The text in force today was adopted on 1 November 1974 and entered into force on 25 May 1980, which is why it is always written as SOLAS 1974, as amended.

Those last two words carry more than they look like they do. SOLAS is amended by tacit acceptance: the IMO adopts an amendment, and unless enough flag states object by a stated date it comes into force automatically. Nobody has to ratify anything again. So the SOLAS a ship is certified under this year is not the document signed in 1974, and a statement that begins “under SOLAS” without a date is describing a moving target.

It applies to ships on international voyages. Most of its substantive requirements bite on cargo ships of 500 gross tonnage and upwards, and on passenger ships regardless of size. Purely domestic trades are the flag state’s own business, which is one of the reasons a coaster working one country’s coast lives under a different set of obligations from a hull of the same size crossing a border.

The chapters

The annex is divided into fifteen chapters. They are not equally interesting to a commercial desk, and it is worth knowing which is which before somebody quotes one at you.

The four a broker meets by name

Chapters IX and XI-2 are the two that grew whole codes of their own, and both are treated separately in this library because both produce a document a charterer asks for. Chapter IX is the ISM Code, which is why every ship has a company holding a Document of Compliance for her. Chapter XI-2 is the ISPS Code, which is where security levels and the security charge on a port disbursement account come from.

Chapter XII is the one that is specific to dry bulk. It sets additional structural and survivability requirements for bulk carriers, and it exists because a run of bulk carriers was lost with all hands in a short period. It is invisible on a fixture note and it is the reason the ship you are fixing is built the way she is.

Chapter VI is the one that turns up in an argument. It governs the carriage of cargoes, including the stability documentation for grain and the requirements around cargoes that may liquefy. A master refusing to load a nickel ore cargo whose moisture content he does not trust is not being difficult, he is doing the thing chapter VI and the associated code require of him, and the laytime consequences are a separate conversation from whether he is right.

The certificates are the operative part

SOLAS works by requiring surveys and issuing certificates. For a cargo ship there are three principal ones, sometimes issued as a single combined certificate:

• Cargo Ship Safety Construction Certificate, for hull, machinery and equipment.
• Cargo Ship Safety Equipment Certificate, for life-saving and firefighting.
• Cargo Ship Safety Radio Certificate, for GMDSS.

Alongside them sit the Safety Management Certificate from chapter IX and the International Ship Security Certificate from chapter XI-2. Each is issued for a fixed term, generally up to five years, and kept alive by surveys in between. An exemption certificate is a real thing too, and it says a flag state has accepted something other than the letter of the requirement.

The flag state issues them. In practice it almost never does the survey itself: it delegates to a classification society acting as a recognised organisation. That delegation is the reason class and statutory certification are constantly confused, and the distinction is worth holding. Class is a private contract about the condition of the structure and machinery. A statutory certificate is a state saying the ship meets a treaty. The same surveyor may sign both on the same day and they answer different questions.

What a certificate does not tell you

A valid certificate says a survey happened and nothing was found that stopped it being issued. It is a statement about a date. It is not a statement about the ship this morning, which is exactly what port state control exists to test, and the first thing an inspector does is check that the certificates on the bridge describe the ship he is standing on.

For a fixture the useful reading is arithmetic rather than legal. Does any certificate expire inside the intended voyage. Is a special survey or a drydocking due in the window you are fixing across, because a hull about to go into dock is not really open for a long voyage whatever the position list says. Has she recently changed flag or manager, in which case some of the paperwork is newer than the ship and the continuous synopsis record under chapter XI-1 is where that shows.

None of that requires reading the convention. It requires knowing that SOLAS is what generates dated documents, and that dates are the part of a safety regime a commercial desk can act on.

References

• IMO, International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS), 1974. Convention page and chapter list
• IMO, SOLAS XI-2 and the ISPS Code. imo.org
• IMO, ISM Code and Guidelines on Implementation of the ISM Code. imo.org
• IMO, Status of IMO Treaties, 2024. PDF
• Paris MoU, Inspection database, detention lists and annual report. parismou.org

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