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Commercial Vessels

The National Marine Safety Committee is progressively developing a national safety standard for commercial vessels to provide a common national standard for the design, construction, crewing and operation of vessels.

For the purposes of a national standard, a commercial vessel is defined as:

any ship, boat or any other type of craft capable of navigation that is used for a commercial purpose; or

a structure designed to float in water that is used for a commercial purpose (except for some pontoons, floating jetties or platforms).

Full detail on the technical definition of commercial vessel is contained in NSCV Part B- General Requirements.

There are currently two national standards. NMSC's principal technical standard, the National Standard for commercial vessels. The principal technical standard, the National Standard for Commercial Vessels (NSCV) is gradually replacing the Uniform Shipping Laws (USL) Code. The National Standards page gives more detail.

It should be noted that NMSC is a standards setter only. The role of regulator remains with state, territory and Commonwealth Marine Safety Agencies.

How can I be involved?

Preparation of a draft standard is undertaken by the Secretariat with input from the NMSC and reference group. The draft is then released for public comment.

To see which documents are currently available for public comment, click on Have your say.