List of merchant navy capacity by country

List of merchant navy capacity by flag is a list of the world foremost fleets of registered trading vessels ranked in both gross tonnage (GT) and deadweight tonnage (DWT) sorted by flag state. The table is based on the annual maritime shipping statistics provided by the British Government and the Department for Transport. It is complete and correct for the year ending 2012.^[1] Statistics are published on an annual basis every September. 2022 numbers are given for actual country of ownership for dwt tonnage.

Present-day merchant shipping in the world's oceans

While countries such as Panama may appear to possess a large merchant navy, this is a result of much of it being managed by foreign overseas companies (such as those based in the United Kingdom and the United States). This is known as flag of convenience.

For example, although the British Merchant Navy totals 30.0 million GT and 40.7 million DWT in shipping, actual UK merchant navy interests worldwide consists of 59.4 million GT and 75.2 million DWT in shipping.^[2] This largely includes the merchant navies of British Overseas Territories and UK merchant navy interests in former colonies.

The table

N°	Country (or territory)	Gross tonnage (millions)[1]	Deadweight tonnage (millions)[1]
	World	1,034.3	2,180 (2022)
1	Panama	215.8	0 (2022)
	European Union	205.1	293.2
2	Liberia	123.8	0 (2022)
3	Marshall Islands	81.1	0 (2022)
4	Hong Kong (China)	78.5	111 (2022)
5	Singapore	59.2	136 (2022)
6	Bahamas	48.3	0 (2022)
7	Malta	45.0	0 (2022)
8	Greece	41.1	384 (2022)
9	China	38.8	277 (2022)
10	France[3]	31.2	80.9 (2022)
11	United Kingdom	30.0	58.7 (2022)
12	Cyprus	19.7	01
13	Spain	18.5	25.3
14	Italy	18.0	21.1
15	Japan	17.8	236 (2022)
16	Norway	14.4	59.9 (2022)
17	Germany	13.7	79 (2022)
18	Denmark	11.3	13.8
19	South Korea	11.1	92.3 (2022)
20	Bermuda (UK)	10.9	63.4 (2022)
22	United States	9.9	11.2
23	India	8.5	14.6
24	Netherlands	6.6	7.2
25	Turkey	6.4	9.7
26	Malaysia	6.2	8.4
28	Russia	5.1	6.4
29	Philippines	4.3	6.0
30	Cayman Islands (UK)	3.2	3.8
31	Taiwan	3.0	4.6
32	Sweden	2.8	1.4
33	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	2.8	3.9
34	Thailand	2.6	4.1
35	Canada	2.4	3.0
36	Kuwait	2.4	4.1
37	Iran	2.1	2.9
38	Brazil	1.9	2.9
39	Cambodia	1.3	1.6

^[4]

See also

• Transport portal

• Ship registration
• Merchant Navy (United Kingdom)