The state of Australia’s merchant fleet in 2026

In the increasingly important discussion surrounding Australia’s maritime resilience and the future of the Australian merchant fleet, there remains significant debate regarding the true number of ships on the Australian register. Inflated fleet figures are often cited through the inclusion of smaller vessels such as barges and tugs, contributing to a misleading perception of Australia’s maritime capability and fostering complacency.

This article seeks to clarify the composition of Australia’s trading fleet by presenting a consolidated assessment of the vessels on the General Register that possess genuine blue-water capability and therefore contribute meaningfully to Australia’s maritime resilience.

With the assistance of John Fisher, an industry consultant from the Logistics Skills Council, I analysed recent government publications relating to Australia’s trading fleet. The following figure is drawn from the Australian Infrastructure and Transport Statistics Yearbook 2025.

The data defines a major trading vessel as being greater than 2,000 DWT and the total number of vessels in the trading fleet being 136 with 53 of those being Australian registered. A limitation of this dataset is that it does not distinguish Australian-registered vessels between the major and minor trading fleet categories, giving us no indication of how many major trading Australian vessels there are.

To get a better idea of how much impact Australian vessels are having, I created a multi-series time-series line graph comparing the DWT of Australian registered vessels and overseas registered vessels from 2002 to 2023.

This figure illustrates the gradual divergence in deadweight tonnage over a 22-year period. Quite staggeringly, the Australian registered deadweight tonnage has decreased by 75% and the overseas registered deadweight tonnage has increased by 284.6 % since 2002.

Referring back to the Australian Infrastructure and Transport Statistics Yearbook 2025 and their stated 53 vessels in Australia’s trading fleet, we can safely say that the 53 vessels aren’t moving much cargo. Furthermore, the relatively low aggregate Australian-registered deadweight tonnage suggests that many of these vessels are likely to fall within the minor trading fleet category (<2,000 DWT).

Following this analysis, it is necessary to determine the true number of vessels trading on the Australian General Register. In my analysis, I have only considered vessels that provide blue-water capability and thus provide maritime resilience.

The table below was generated by downloading the full Australian General Register and filtering the dataset in Excel for the following vessel categories: Bulk carrier, bulker, cargo, cargo vessel, freighter, general cargo, general cargo ship, general ro-ro, ro-ro ferry, liquid cargo vessel, multi-purpose ship, oil tanker, ro-ro, roro, ro-ro/general cargo and special purpose ship. These vessels were cross-referenced against Equasis.org and relevant changes to the vessel type and additions to specifications were made (Mainly DWT). Blue-water capability was determined by the deadweight tonnage and the vessel’s operational role. As a result, bunker barges were omitted from the list. 

The analysis finished with eleven blue-water capable trading vessels. But how much resilience do these vessels provide? To begin with, we can see there are no large ships with the largest vessel being the DONNACONA with 17,415 DWT. There are two handysize self-discharging bulk carriers, however, it is arguable that these provide no practical resilience. The ro-ros listed are ocean capable, but mostly service Tasmania. These provide some resilience, but limited resilience in the broader context of Australia’s strategic requirements. Finally, the NUYINA is primarily a research vessel and contributes little to commercial maritime resilience.

No tankers

A key takeaway from the list of eleven is that there aren’t any tankers. Recent concerns regarding potential disruption in the Strait of Hormuz have highlighted Australia’s reliance on foreign shipping for our oil imports. The fact that we don’t have any tankers on our General Register is concerning and a weakness that needs to be rectified. Additionally, the two older Spirit of Tasmania vessels are scheduled to be replaced by the newer ships currently entering service. As a result, the effective number of blue-water capable trading vessels on the General Register is essentially nine rather than eleven.

The question then becomes how Australia can realistically increase the number of tankers on its register? The Government is pursuing the Strategic Fleet, which aims to improve Australia’s maritime resilience, but the implementation date seems to be uncertain. A quicker and cheaper option is reforming the Australian International Shipping Register (AISR). 

Read what Australian shipping professionals think about the AISR.