The UK’s maritime emissions scheme is moving into compliance mode, with operators facing monitoring duties from 1 July 2026 and a first allowance surrender deadline on 30 April 2028, according to Environment Agency guidance published on 22 June 2026.
The guidance sets out how maritime operators must comply with the UK Emissions Trading Scheme for ships of 5,000 GT or more.
The scope covers voyages between UK ports of call and in-port activity at UK ports, while voyages from a UK port of call to a port outside the UK are not regulated as UK ETS voyages.
A maritime operator is either the registered owner or an ISM company that has taken over the ship’s operation, ISM Code compliance and UK ETS obligations under a legally binding written agreement.
Delegation cannot be backdated, and any termination or material change must be notified in METS within 14 days.
Operators must open a maritime account in METS, apply for an emissions monitoring plan within 42 days of starting their first UK ETS maritime activity, monitor CO2, N2O and CH4, and file a verified annual emissions report by 31 March in the year after the scheme year.
The first maritime scheme year runs from 1 July to 31 December 2026. From 2027, the scheme year will run from 1 January to 31 December.
Operators must surrender one UK allowance for each tonne of CO2 equivalent in their emissions figure for surrender. The first surrender deadline covers both the 2026 and 2027 scheme years and falls at 23:59 GMT on 30 April 2028. From the 2028 scheme year, surrender will be due by 23:59 GMT on 30 April in the following year.
A 50% surrender deduction applies only to voyages between ports of call in Northern Ireland and ports of call in Great Britain.
Operators must still monitor and report all emissions from those voyages. Simplified monitoring is available where a ship is scheduled to complete more than 300 voyages in a scheme year and only carries out voyages and in-port activities. In that case, operators may report annual fuel consumption and annual greenhouse gas emissions instead of monitoring fuel use voyage by voyage.
Annual emissions reports must be checked by a UKAS-accredited independent verifier. Operators that fail to surrender enough allowances face a mandatory excess emissions penalty of £100 ($133) multiplied by the inflation factor for each missing allowance, and must still surrender the deficit.
The Environment Agency is a non-departmental public body in England and the regulator for maritime operators based in England and outside the UK under the guidance. It also performs the UK ETS Registry administrator role.
UKAS is the United Kingdom’s national accreditation body.
The UK ETS Authority is the body responsible for creating UK allowances and introducing them into the market primarily through auctions.
