Fleet under the French flag statistics

Information

Published on 05/10/2023 | Updated 05/05/2024

Statistics of the fleet of vessels under the French flag registered with the RIF

The RIF Office is responsible for keeping statistics on the fleet of vessels registered in the international register of the French flag (RIF).

Characteristics of the RIF fleet

Today, the RIF fleet is characterised by the following main trends:

increase in the number of vessels (+108 since 2017), thanks in particular to the steady rise in recent years in the maritime transport and yachting segments;
the fleet is becoming larger, with an increase in gross tonnage (+75.2% since 2017), driven in particular by the maritime transport segment;
greening of the fleet with LNG-powered vessels (e.g. CMA CGM’s 9 x 23,000 TEU container ships) and the arrival of sailing cargo ships such as Grain de Sail and Canopée (future projects: Towt, Vela, etc.);
renewal of the fleet, whose maritime transport segment segment average age in 2022 was 5.5 years (European average: 15 years) ;
and diversification of the fleet, with strong growth in the yachting segment since 2017 and a rebalancing between shipping and maritime services.

Situational analysis of the RIF fleet

On 31 December 2023, this component of the fleet under the French flag comprised 421 vessels with a total gross tonnage of 8.54 million UMS¹.

Evolution of RIF fleet statistics between 31 December 2017 and 31 December 2023
	31/12/2017	31/12/2023	Evolution
Number of vessels registered with the RIF	313	421	+ 108 ships + 34.5 %
of which maritime transport vessels	77	104	+ 27 ships + 35 %
of which offshore services vessels	192	171	- 21 ships - 10.9 %
of which commercial yachts	50	146	+ 96 yachts + 192 %
RIF fleet’s gross tonnage	4 820 000 UMS	8 540 000 UMS	+ 3 720 000 UMS + 77.2 %
of which gross tonnage of the maritime transport segment	4 513 000 UMS	8 145 000 UMS	+ 3 632 000 UMS + 80.5 %
of which gross tonnage of the offshore services segment	309 000	292 000 UMS	- 17 000 UMS - 5.5 %
of which gross tonnage of the commercial yachting segment	5 800 UMS	16 000 UMS	+ 10 200 UMS + 175.8 %

Find a synthesis document about RIF fleet’s statistics below:

État des lieux de la flotte du RIF au 31/12/2023

General statistics on the French merchant fleet as defined by the Merchant Fleet Division

All statistics on the French merchant fleet are available on the website of the French State Ministry for the Sea.

Please note: the statistics contained in the report published by the Merchant Fleet Division (mission de la flotte de commerce/MFC) relate only to ships with a gross tonnage of more than 100 UMS in the following categories: