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Companies

433 maritime companies that employ or place seafarers worldwide — operators, ship managers, manning agencies, and crew managers. An operator has commercial control of the vessel; a ship manager provides technical management under a third-party contract; a manning agency recruits and supplies crew under a manning agreement; a crew manager handles seafarer employment contracts and payroll. The same company can hold multiple roles, but on most international vessels these are separate legal entities. For brand-level shipping-line profiles (Maersk, MSC, CMA CGM, COSCO and the rest of the top-25 carriers) see /shipping-operators; for cruise lines see /cruise-lines.

How to use this directory: filter by type using the dropdown below, or jump to /companies/operators, /companies/manning-agencies, or /companies/fleet-rankings for the ranked view. Each detail page surfaces a seafarer FAQ derived from the underlying data and a complaint-route guide.

Before signing a contract: verify the legal entity actually offering the contract (manning agent vs. operator vs. crew manager), check the IMO Company Number where listed, and cross-check the website + complaint procedure. No legitimate maritime employer asks seafarers to pay an upfront fee for a job offer — that is the principal red flag for recruitment scams. See how ITF and IBF agreements work for the collective-bargaining context.

Companies directory: FAQ

How do I check if a maritime company is legitimate?
Verify the company's IMO Company Number (issued by the IMO for vessel-owning and managing companies), check whether they appear on Equasis (the European Quality Shipping Information System), look up their flag-state-registered fleet on the relevant flag administration's vessel registry, and check our /scams database for any reported recruitment fraud. Legitimate operators never ask seafarers to pay an upfront fee for a job offer.
What's the difference between owner, operator, manning agent, and crew manager?
Owner: the legal entity holding title to the vessel. Operator: the entity commercially employing the vessel. Manning agent: recruits seafarers (often in a single country) and forwards them to the crew manager. Crew manager: handles seafarer employment contracts and payroll. The same company can hold multiple roles, but on most international vessels they are separate entities.
What's the largest shipping company in the world?
By container TEU capacity: MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company. By tanker tonnage: depending on year, China Merchants Energy Shipping, Frontline, or SCF Group. By owned-vessel count: typically Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL), NYK, or Maersk Group. Our /companies directory indexes 400+ major operators across every segment.
How do I report a recruitment scam?
Report to ISWAN (24-hour multilingual SeafarerHelp line at +44 20 7323 2737), the ITF, and the maritime authority of the country where the scam took place. Our /scams database collects anonymous reports per agency and surfaces patterns. Common red flags: upfront fees, vague vessel names, pressure to decide within 48 hours, payments to personal bank accounts.
Are these company records verified?
Each company entry is cross-referenced against the company's website, Wikipedia, IMO Company Number when available, and operator-reported fleet data. We surface Firecrawl-cached headlines and last-verified dates on every page. Editorial confidence is graded high / medium / low based on the strength of the source set.