The development of offshore wind energy in the Polish Exclusive Economic Zone has entered a decisive phase. The transition from the design stage to the physical installation of turbines and offshore substations is associated with a sharp increase in demand for specialized vessels. In addition to large installation units (WTIVs), a key element of the offshore logistics chain is the so-called small support fleet—Crew Transfer Vessels (CTVs) and smaller Service Operation Vessels (SOVs). Despite the market’s potential, Polish shipowners have long faced an invisible barrier preventing them from competing effectively in the domestic market.
This barrier did not stem from a lack of competence, but rather from a phenomenon referred to in the industry as “regulatory dumping.” In procurement processes, Polish vessels were consistently outpriced by foreign competitors. The source of this unfair advantage lay directly within the regulatory framework.
Foreign support fleets, benefiting from the flexible and often less stringent regulatory regimes of their flag states (e.g. the UK Workboat Code), were able to significantly reduce both vessel construction and operating costs. At the same time, vessels flying the Polish flag were required to strictly comply with rigorous domestic safety standards, resulting in higher capital and operational expenditures (CAPEX/OPEX). Consequently, the ability of foreign competitors to offer lower-priced services was frequently achieved at the expense of maintaining optimal safety standards for seafarers and technicians. This imbalance, however, was ultimately addressed through a comprehensive reform of the Polish maritime legal framework.
Limitations of the SOLAS Convention
The primary legal instrument governing global maritime safety is the International Convention for the Safety of Life at Sea (hereinafter: the SOLAS Convention). From the perspective of large commercial vessels, it is a fundamental framework. However, in the case of offshore wind energy, a significant regulatory gap emerges: the SOLAS Convention generally does not apply to cargo ships of less than 500 gross tonnage (GT), as explicitly stated in Regulation 3(a)(ii) of Chapter I of the Convention. These vessels, in turn, form the backbone of the small support fleet operating at offshore wind farms.
As a result, the safety of smaller-tonnage vessels is governed by the national regulations of the flag state under which they operate. In the context of growing demand for installation services, this has led in the Baltic Sea to a collision of two entirely distinct legal regimes.
On the one hand, there are the highly stringent Polish regulations (based, inter alia, on the requirements of the Polish Register of Shipping and the Regulation of the Minister of Infrastructure and Development of 5 September 2014 on the requirements concerning the construction of a vessel, its permanent fittings and equipment for ships not covered by international conventions — hereinafter: the Construction Requirements Regulation), which very precisely define, for example, parameters such as the thickness of fire insulation as well as strict standards regarding the number and arrangement of life-saving appliances.
By contrast, vessels operating in the same waters may be certified under significantly more flexible Western regulatory frameworks—such as the UK Workboat Code or relevant Danish regulations. For foreign shipowners, these “less stringent” requirements effectively translate into lighter vessels, lower fuel consumption, and no need for costly structural retrofitting or additional equipment.
Differences in approaches to fire protection, life-saving appliances, and even stability modelling directly translated into lower operating costs for foreign fleets. As a result, foreign shipowners were able to win tenders not only due to higher efficiency, but also because differing regulatory systems enabled them to significantly optimise construction and equipment costs. At the same time, Polish shipowners were obliged to bear the full costs of adapting their vessels to stringent domestic standards.
New Operating Rules for “Non-SOLAS” Vessels
The legislator’s response to the existence of parallel safety regimes is the Act of 9 October 2025 amending the Act on the Promotion of Electricity Generation in Offshore Wind Farms and certain other acts (Journal of Laws, item 1535). This act amended, inter alia, the Act of 18 August 2011 on Maritime Safety (hereinafter: the Maritime Safety Act), introducing a few changes, including a new Article 86¹. This provision fundamentally alters the formal and legal framework governing the operation of foreign “non-SOLAS” fleets in Polish waters.
Pursuant to Article 86¹(1) of the Maritime Safety Act, a foreign vessel not subject to the SOLAS Convention, intended to be operated in regular shipping services between a Polish port and destinations located in Polish maritime areas for a period exceeding 14 days in a calendar year, is required to obtain an operating permit. Of key importance here is the concept of “regular shipping services”, defined by the legislator as a systematic series of connections, and therefore a framework encompassing not a single, incidental voyage, but a repeatable pattern of transport operations. In this sense, the provision corresponds to the operational nature of offshore activities, which is also reflected in the scope of information required in the application for an operating permit, including, inter alia, the base port, the installations served, and their distance from the port.
From the perspective of legal and business practice, a significant interpretative issue arises regarding the method of calculating the 14-day period referred to in the provision. The legislator does not explicitly clarify whether this refers to a continuous period of operation or to the cumulative number of operational days within a calendar year. For shipowners operating a shuttle-based model, often across the boundaries of the exclusive economic zones of neighbouring states, this is not merely a theoretical issue but a factor that may directly affect contract planning and vessel mobilisation schedules.
Irrespective of how the term is interpreted by the relevant authorities, the operating permit itself is issued by way of an administrative decision by the Director of the competent maritime office (Article 86¹(2) of the Maritime Safety Act). However, the legislator has introduced a significant evidentiary requirement. Pursuant to Article 86¹(5)(3) of the same Act, the application must be accompanied by a document issued by a recognized organization (e.g. a classification society), confirming that the vessel meets technical requirements no less stringent than those applicable to vessels flying the Polish flag.
The reference provision in this respect is the delegation contained in Article 12(2) of the Maritime Safety Act, based on which the Minister of Infrastructure and Development issued the Regulation of 5 September 2014 on the requirements concerning the construction of a vessel, its permanent fittings and equipment for ships not covered by international conventions. It is Section 2 of the said Regulation that sets out 26 precise categories of technical requirements (including, inter alia, hull construction, fire protection, and life-saving appliances). In turn, Section 3 expressly refers to the technical requirements of the Polish Register of Shipping S.A. (PRS) or another authorised organisation as the applicable standard.
In practical terms, this means that a foreign shipowner must demonstrate to the Polish administration the full equivalence of its vessel with the parameters required under Polish technical law.
Certification Challenges and the Severity of Sanctions
Responsibility for the technical assessment of compliance with the requirements set out in Article 86¹ of the Maritime Safety Act rests de facto with recognized organizations such as the Polish Register of Shipping (PRS), DNV, or Bureau Veritas. The legislator, in Article 86¹(6) of the Maritime Safety Act, explicitly stated that the organization carrying out the survey may request additional clarifications from the shipowner regarding classification rules or the regulations of the flag state. From an engineering practice perspective, this provision effectively legitimizes and enforces a thorough Gap Analysis between the goal-based standards of foreign flag states and the highly prescriptive requirements of the Polish Regulation on construction requirements.
For recognized organizations, this process does not amount to a simple validation of existing vessel documentation. It requires an engineering demonstration of equivalence of the applied solutions. This, in turn, necessitates that shipowners provide advanced, and often copyright-protected, vessel design documentation. The main areas of analytical friction relate to fire protection requirements (e.g. classification of watertight bulkheads in small aluminium vessels), stability calculation algorithms, and the number and arrangement of life-saving appliances. If a recognized organization determines that the Polish standards are not fully met, the shipowner is faced with the necessity of structural modifications to the vessel, generating significant additional costs.
The situation is further intensified by the stringent sanctioning regime introduced in Article 86¹ (7) of the Maritime Safety Act. This provision obliges the Director of the maritime office to revoke the operating permit where serious deficiencies are identified during an inspection, resulting in the detention of the vessel. This legal framework leaves recognized organizations no room for flexibility or leniency in certification—any error may result in the immediate exclusion of a vessel from ongoing operations. For offshore wind farm developers, the sudden withdrawal of an operating permit for a key service vessel may lead to downtime, suspension of works, and multi-million contractual penalties.
All these factors fundamentally change the vessel contracting model in the Polish offshore sector. A clear distinction must be made between administrative and technical costs—while the fee for an inspection conducted by the maritime authority for the issuance of a permit amounts to PLN 500 (Item 16a of the Annex to the Maritime Safety Act), the engineering costs borne by the shipowner are many times higher. Moreover, proceedings conducted under the Administrative Procedure Code (KPA) by maritime authorities, combined with the time required for the classification society’s gap analysis, typically take one to two months. This means that ad hoc, spot-market chartering of foreign support vessels in emergency situations (e.g. in response to an unexpected offshore wind farm failure) is effectively rendered legally and logistically almost impossible.
Implications for Polish Shipowners and Seafarers
The introduction of Article 86¹ into the Maritime Safety Act, while constituting a significant administrative and logistical challenge for the supply chain, carries far-reaching consequences for the structure of the Polish offshore market. The most important of these is the elimination of cost asymmetry and the restoration of a level playing field. Foreign shipowners, forced to account in their financial models for the costs of certification, gap analyses, and potential vessel modifications, lose the ability to offer rates significantly lower than those proposed by domestic operators.
Equally important are the implications for maritime personnel themselves. From the perspective of Polish seafarers and wind technicians, the amendment should translate into a direct and measurable improvement in occupational safety. Previous market practices often allowed personnel to be employed on foreign vessels which, although legally certified by foreign administrations, featured reduced fire protection standards or lower redundancy in life-saving equipment compared to Polish requirements.
The harmonisation of requirements and the alignment of foreign fleets with standards set out in the Regulation on construction requirements is intended to ensure that, regardless of the flag flown at the stern, vessels operating at Polish wind farms provide crews with an adequate level of protection of life and health at sea as required by Polish law. Ultimately, this change aims to put an end to situations in which cost optimisation in tendering processes comes at the expense of the safety margin of Polish offshore workers.
Conclusion
The amendment to the Maritime Safety Act and the introduction of Article 86¹ constitute a key milestone in structuring the operational framework for the support fleet in the Polish offshore wind sector. By closing a legal loophole that previously allowed foreign “non-SOLAS” vessels to circumvent national technical standards through registration in jurisdictions with more lenient requirements, the legislator has effectively addressed the issue of regulatory dumping in the Baltic Sea.
Although the new provisions represent a significant logistical and financial challenge for the existing supply chain—requiring complex gap analyses conducted by recognized organizations, verification procedures at maritime offices, and extending vessel mobilisation timelines—their long-term impact on the structure of the Polish market is positive. Aligning requirements for all vessels operating in Polish waters for more than 14 days not only restores fair competition and creates opportunities for the development of a domestic fleet, but above all ensures a genuine harmonisation of maritime life-saving standards.
For Polish seafarers and wind technicians, this translates into work under standardised conditions subject to uniform verification and compliance with stringent safety standards set by national law. For the industry as a whole, it marks the transition into a mature phase of offshore wind development, characterised by a well-regulated and equitable legal framework. One can only express regret that Polish local content in other areas of this sector is not equally effectively regulated and legally safeguarded.
Mateusz Romowicz, attorney at law
Antoni Pochmara, assistant
DOWNLOAD PDF