UK (OFCOM) Ship Radio Licences for Foreign Registered Yachts A Warning!

Ship radio licences for all yachts registered in the UK, Isle of Man or the Channel Islands are issued by OFCOM.

OFCOM is the government-approved regulatory and competition authority for the broadcasting, telecommunications and postal industries of the United Kingdom.

Ship radio licences issued by OFCOM cannot be used for any vessel that is not registered in the UK, Isle of Man or the Channel Islands.

A UK (OFCOM) radio licence is not therefore valid for any vessel holding another flag.

The OFCOM guidance notes state the following:

“We may issue licences and assign call signs and MMSIs only to ships flagged in the UK, Isle of Man or the Channel Islands. If we discover that we have issued a licence for a ship flagged in another country, we may revoke the UK Ship Radio Licence.”

We are aware of various online registration providers offering OFCOM radio licences to any vessel regardless of flag.

Often they are offering OFCOM radio licences as part of registration packages for Dutch or Polish registrations.

We quote wordings that we have seen to this effect such as:

“We can also offer you a worldwide MMSI issued by the UK Telecom authorities. This official radio license will be valid to use with a VHF, AIS, and EPIRB on your boat AND IT DOES NOT MATTER UNDER WHICH FLAG YOU ARE CURRENTLY REGISTERED.”

&

“We offer a MMSI license issued by UK government. It has no restrictions on your nationality or under which flag your vessel is registered and is valid for 10 years. It only takes us 1 day to obtain your license.”

These and any similar statements are incorrect. To hold an OFCOM issued radio licence the vessel in question must be registered in the UK, Isle of Man or the Channel Islands.

Oceanskies are able to provide an OFCOM vessel radiolicensing service as part of our yacht registration package or as a stand-alone service for any yacht registered in the UK, Isle of Man or the Channel Islands (i.e. Guernsey or Jersey).

We can also obtain radio licences for vessels registered in certain other jurisdictions for vessels flying their flag such as Malta, Cayman Islands, Poland through the corresponding official radiolicensing authority.

Please do not hesitate to contact us for further information.