Geopolitical instability has tightened its grip on global shipping, ranking as the industry’s leading business risk for a fourth consecutive year in the International Chamber of Shipping’s Maritime Barometer Report 2025–2026, according to ICS.
The report was launched on 23 June at the ICS Shaping the Future of Shipping Summit in Rome. It is based on 185 complete responses from C-suite maritime executives across shipowning, shipmanagement, classification, ports, insurance, law, shipbuilding and other parts of the sector.
Nearly 52% of respondents were shipowners and 39% were ship managers, giving the survey a strong operator-side weighting.
Political instability is presented in the report as a “risk multiplier” across cybersecurity, regulatory fragmentation, compliance burdens and changing trade flows.
“Global shipping is entering a period where uncertainty is no longer an interruption to business, it is the backdrop against which decisions are made,” ICS Secretary General Thomas A. Kazakos said.
Cyber attacks and unilateral or regional regulations followed political instability among the highest-ranked risks. Shipowners placed particular emphasis on rising administrative burden, reflecting the pressure of sanctions checks, emissions reporting and diverging regulatory regimes.
The report points to a more cautious approach to decarbonisation. LNG and biofuels were identified as the most viable fuel options for the next decade, followed by HFO combined with abatement technologies.
Regulation, public funding and market-based measures were ranked as the most influential factors for shipping operations and the energy transition.
A special section on the delayed IMO Net-Zero Framework vote found that most respondents had not changed their decarbonisation plans, although some had amended or abandoned strategies because of regulatory uncertainty.
ICS cautioned that all but eight responses were submitted before major Middle East developments earlier this year, leaving the barometer as a snapshot of industry sentiment before the latest escalation in geopolitical risk.
The International Chamber of Shipping is a global trade association for merchant shipowners and operators, representing national shipowner associations and more than 80% of the world merchant fleet across sectors and trades.
