New research sheds light on hidden ownership of the world’s industrial fishing fleets
Press Release Date: May 21, 2025
Location: Madrid
Contact:
Irene Campmany | email: icampmany@oceana.org | tel.: +34 682 622 245
Companies in just 10 countries, including Spain and the Netherlands, control more than half of all large-scale fishing vessels
When EU- owned but foreign-flagged vessels are taken into account, the number of vessels in the EU’s distant water fleet more than doubles
A new report by EqualSea Lab of the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) and commissioned by Oceana exposes ownership information, or lack thereof, of the world’s large-scale fishing (LSF) fleets. Industrial fishing vessels account for 60% of all marine fisheries landings and receive over 80% of all global government fisheries subsidies. Large-scale fishing fleets’ outsized impact on seafood production makes ownership transparency critical to fisheries governance. Despite this, nearly two-thirds of large-scale fishing fleet vessels lack any available ownership information, the report found.
The research shows that EU companies own at least 344 vessels larger than 24 meters in length and flagged to 43 non-EU countries that fish outside EU waters. When they are added to the 244 EU-flagged long distance fishing vessels, the actual size of the EU distant-water fleet becomes 588 vessels, 140% higher than the official fleet size in 2022. The EU Member States with the highest numbers of foreign fishing vessel ownership are Spain, the Netherlands, and Italy. Most of these vessels are flagged to countries in Africa (159 vessels) and South America (130 vessels), 55 are flagged to other countries. The top three flag states with EU-owned vessels are Argentina, Panama and the United Kingdom.
“Knowing who can fish what, where and when and who profits from it enables accountability and supports sustainable and legal fishing. By enhancing transparency, authorities would have crucial information to find and sanction the real owners of fishing vessels. This would help coastal communities and local fishers by ensuring a more equitable access to marine resources”, says Vanya Vulperhorst, Illegal Fishing and Transparency campaign director at Oceana in Europe.
The country where a vessel is registered — its flag state — rarely tells the full story of who really profits from that vessel’s fish catch. According to the report, more than one in six vessels are legally owned in a country different from their flag state. This can reflect a deliberate strategy by the ultimate owner, also called the beneficial owner, of a vessel to hide behind layers of other registered individuals and shell companies in order to lower costs, dodge taxes, or secure additional fishing opportunities. By simply registering in whichever country offers the most lenient rules, bad actors have a greater ability to potentially conceal illegal activities.
Many flag states do not require beneficial ownership information to be disclosed at the time of vessel registration, allowing owners to hide behind anonymity and weakening flag states’ ability to effectively enforce laws or hold vessel owners accountable. The most common registries used by foreign firms to flag large scale fishing vessels are those of Panama, Belize, and Honduras, the report found.
Oceana is calling on flag states to require beneficial ownership information upon vessel registration and to share this information publicly.
The policy brief and full report are available here.
