Port State Control (PSC) inspections continue to be a major operational pressure point for vessel owners and managers, and 2025 data reinforces just how high the stakes have become.
In 2025, more than 77,400 PSC inspections were carried out globally across over 32,470 ships, uncovering a total of 184,738 deficiencies — an average of 2.4 deficiencies per inspection. More than one in two PSC inspections resulted in at least one deficiency, meaning a vessel is statistically more likely than not to be found non-compliant at any given port call. Of these inspections, 3.6% resulted in detention, with detained vessels losing an average of 5.6 days per detention event.
For owners and managers, this combination of inspection findings and persistent detention risk is not just a compliance issue, but a commercial risk. With an estimated cost of USD 15,000 per day of detention, even average detention durations can result in losses exceeding USD 80,000 per PSC inspection, excluding knock-on impacts such as delays, rescheduling, and reputational exposure.
What this points to is a broader shift in how PSC outcomes should be understood. PSC inspections are no longer isolated events, but reflections of how effectively risk is identified and managed before a vessel arrives in port. Early visibility of potential deficiencies, combined with timely corrective action, can significantly reduce the likelihood of detention and minimise operational disruption.
Looking beyond 2025, the broader trend suggests that PSC pressures remain high across the industry.
Between 2023 and 2025, the number of PSC inspections increased by 5.5%, reflecting continued regulatory oversight across the global fleet. At the same time, the proportion of inspections resulting in at least one deficiency increased from approximately 48% to 53%, meaning vessels are now more likely than not to receive a deficiency during a PSC inspection.
While the average duration of detention has remained relatively consistent at around six days over the past three years, each detention continues to represent a significant operational and commercial disruption for owners and managers.
Analysis of PSC inspections in 2025 shows that vessels aged 14–24 years account for the largest share of inspections globally and across major MoUs, including the Paris MoU and Tokyo MoU.
This concentration is not incidental. The average age of the world's dry fleet is steadily increasing as the market waits for clarity on emerging technologies and green fuels before committing to large-scale fleet replacement. The significant influx of newbuilds during the 2010s means that a growing proportion of the trading fleet now falls into the ageing category, and operators will increasingly need to rely on older tonnage to meet demand. It is within this context that PSC exposure for ageing vessels is rising.
However, the data is clear that inspection exposure is not confined to ageing vessels. Younger vessels, including those in the 0–9 year age range, are also regularly inspected.
Whether a vessel is fresh from the shipyard or mid-life in its operational cycle, PSC scrutiny is a universal reality. Maintaining consistent compliance and safety standards must therefore be treated as a permanent operating discipline, not a periodic concern.
Inspection patterns also vary significantly by vessel type.
RightShip data shows that bulk carriers and general cargo vessels account for nearly 60% of all PSC inspections, with bulk carriers alone representing approximately 38%.
This concentration reflects both the size of the global dry bulk fleet and the trading patterns of bulk carriers and general cargo vessels, which frequently call at ports subject to active PSC regimes. While inspection volume alone does not indicate elevated risk, it does increase exposure to inspection findings and detention events, making preparedness particularly important for dry bulk operators.
The data becomes more striking when detention ratios are examined by vessel type. Bulk carriers, for instance, not only face more frequent inspections but also demonstrate a higher likelihood of detention when inspected. With a detention ratio of 4.69, compared to 1.15 for oil tankers and just 0.38 for LNG carriers, the disparity is significant.
For dry bulk operators, maintaining consistent vessel readiness is not just about meeting regulatory expectations, but about protecting commercial competitiveness in a segment where both inspection frequency and consequence are elevated.
Despite evolving regulations and inspection regimes, the nature of deficiencies identified in 2025 remains largely unchanged across MoUs.
Fire safety, life-saving appliances, safety of navigation, emergency systems, and structural condition continue to dominate the top findings globally. These have remained largely unchanged over recent years, suggesting that the challenge is less about new or emerging risks, and more about the consistent execution of fundamental safety practices onboard.
The implication is that many PSC findings stem from known and recurring issues rather than unforeseen events. For operators, this suggests that improvements are more likely to come from stronger execution and maintenance discipline than from introducing entirely new compliance processes.
This trend is reflected across the major PSC regimes. The Tokyo MoU Annual Report 2025 identified fire safety, life-saving appliances, working and living conditions, and safety of navigation as the most common deficiency categories, collectively accounting for more than half of all recorded deficiencies in the region.
Similarly, the Paris MoU Annual Report 2025 reported that fire safety, structural and electrical elements (SOLAS Chapter II-1), and crew health and welfare (MLC Title IV) remained the leading areas of non-compliance, with no significant shift towards new regulatory concerns.
Fire Safety
Within fire safety, common deficiencies include issues with means of escape and ventilation. These are critical elements of onboard emergency response, and repeated findings in these areas point to gaps in maintaining clear evacuation pathways and effective air movement systems, both of which are essential in fire scenarios. This aligns with findings from both the Tokyo and Paris MoUs. The Tokyo MoU recorded 18,020 fire safety deficiencies in 2025, while the Paris MoU likewise identified fire safety (SOLAS Chapter II-2) as its single largest deficiency category, accounting for 16.8% of all recorded deficiencies.
Life-Saving Appliances (LSA)
The majority of the deficiencies related to life-saving appliances (LSA) are concentrated around lifeboats, lifebuoys, and rescue boats. Taken together, these findings point to a broader issue of evacuation readiness, where the challenge is not the presence of equipment, but whether it is properly maintained, accessible, and ready for immediate use. This is consistent with both the Tokyo and Paris MoUs, where life-saving appliances continue to rank among the leading PSC deficiency categories.
Safety of Navigation
Common deficiencies include lights and sound-signalling equipment, magnetic compasses, and voyage data recorders (VDR/S-VDR). These are essential systems for safe vessel operation, and recurring findings suggest ongoing challenges in maintaining their accuracy, functionality, and compliance. RightShip's findings are consistent with both the Tokyo and Paris MoUs, where safety of navigation continues to rank among the leading PSC deficiency categories. Tokyo MoU alone recorded 8,936 navigation-related deficiencies in 2025.
While deficiency counts provide a useful indicator of vessel condition, detention outcomes are driven less by the number of deficiencies identified and more by their severity.
Our data shows that a vessel with a single high-risk deficiency faces a detention rate of 4.1%—higher than the fleet-wide average of 3.6%, and nearly four times the detention rate of a vessel carrying between five and ten medium or low-risk deficiencies.
This highlights an important distinction for operators. Not all deficiencies carry equal weight. Some findings represent isolated administrative issues, while others point to failures in critical safety systems that can trigger immediate enforcement action.
The difference becomes even more pronounced at the extreme end of the spectrum. Vessels with 11 or more deficiencies that include high-risk findings face a 61% probability of detention.
For owners and managers, the implication is clear. Understanding what the most common deficiencies are is important, but understanding which deficiencies pose the greatest detention risk is even more valuable. When preparation time before a port call is limited, prioritising corrective action against high-severity findings can deliver a disproportionate reduction in detention risk.
When PSC outcomes are compared against vessels with a valid RightShip Inspection, a clear correlation emerges.
Of the vessels inspected in 2025, over 4,300 vessels held a valid RightShip Inspection, and these vessels outperformed the wider PSC-inspected fleet:
| RightShip Inspected | Wider Fleet | |
|
Average deficiencies per inspection |
2.0 | 2.4 |
|
Detention ratio |
2.4% | 3.6% |
|
Average detention duration |
3.7 days | 5.6 days |
Table 1. Vessels with a valid RightShip Inspection recorded lower deficiencies, lower detention ratios, and shorter detention durations compared to the wider PSC-inspected fleet.
Rather than indicating a direct causal relationship, these differences point to the role of inspection readiness and improved risk visibility.
A RightShip Inspection provides a structured, RISQ-based assessment that identifies potential safety, technical, and operational risks in advance. However, the value is not in the inspection alone, but in what follows. It is the actions taken after the inspection—addressing identified gaps, strengthening onboard practices, and closing out risks—that ultimately influence outcomes.
This enables operators to resolve issues earlier and approach port calls with greater confidence in their vessel's risk profile, regardless of whether a PSC inspection ultimately occurs.
Looking at performance over time reinforces this pattern. Across PSC inspections occurring in the six months before and after a RightShip Inspection, the observed detention rate decreased by 2%, possibly indicating that vessels following a RightShip Inspection experienced lower detention rates in the subsequent six-month period. This suggests that improved visibility, combined with timely corrective action, can contribute to more consistent outcomes during subsequent inspections.
The 2025 PSC landscape reinforces a clear reality: inspection outcomes are increasingly shaped before a vessel arrives in port. In a risk-based inspection environment, proactive risk identification, continuous compliance oversight, and operational transparency are no longer just compliance measures — they are critical levers for reducing disruption, protecting commercial schedules, and maintaining competitive standing.
The commercial case for consistent vessel readiness is reinforced by the data. Vessels with a valid RightShip Inspection recorded lower deficiencies, lower detention ratios, and shorter detention durations than the wider fleet — not because the inspection itself guarantees a better PSC outcome, but because the process of identifying gaps and acting on them ahead of time leads to stronger onboard practices. The result is fewer delays, reduced off-hire exposure, and more predictable voyage execution. For owners and managers, that translates directly into tangible cost savings and a more resilient commercial operation.
Achieving this requires more than periodic checks — it requires access to the right data and tools to anticipate risk and act before port arrival.
Increasingly, owners and managers are turning to AI-powered predictive intelligence tools to strengthen vessel readiness and make port call preparation more targeted and efficient. Rather than relying solely on historical inspection records or manual processes, these tools help operators identify where attention should be focused before a vessel arrives in port.
By analysing historical PSC trends, vessel performance and inspection outcomes, predictive tools such as RightShip’s PSC RiskIQ help operators anticipate inspection risks, identify high-severity deficiency areas, and prioritise corrective actions where they can have the greatest impact. This is further supported by structured preparation checklists aligned to recognised industry inspection frameworks, together with real-time AIS-enabled port call detection that automatically triggers risk alerts as vessels approach port.
Today, more than 270 customers rely on PSC RiskIQ as part of their port call preparation process, reflecting the industry's growing adoption of intelligence-led risk management.
Alongside this, structured inspections play an important role in reinforcing preparedness. A RightShip Inspection helps establish a clear and consistent view of vessel risk, providing operators with a baseline to identify and address gaps. When followed by timely corrective actions, it supports stronger onboard practices and contributes to more consistent outcomes during PSC inspections.
Ultimately, the message from 2025 is clear. The better prepared a vessel is before a PSC inspection, the better the outcome when it matters most.
Notes:
RightShip dataset used for this analysis