What EU MRV actually measures

Which ships report, what they must report, and what the figures do not cover.

Regulation (EU) 2015/757 requires every ship above 5,000 gross tonnes that calls at a port in the European Economic Area to monitor and report its fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. The obligation sits with the company operating the ship. Each annual return is checked by an accredited verifier before it is submitted, and the European Commission publishes the verified returns.

Which ships are in and which are out

The threshold is tonnage plus a European port call, not ownership or flag. A Panamanian bulk carrier trading between Rotterdam and Shanghai reports. A larger vessel that never calls in Europe does not. Warships, fish catching vessels and wooden ships are excluded outright, as are ships below the tonnage threshold however hard they work.

This is why the register holds 24,129 vessels rather than the whole world fleet, and why absence from it says nothing about a ship's emissions.

What is reported

Fuel consumed and CO₂ emitted, split by voyage leg: journeys to an EEA port, journeys from one, journeys between two, and emissions produced while sitting at berth. Alongside those come distance travelled, hours at sea, cargo carried, and a transport work figure that turns emissions into an efficiency ratio.

From the 2024 reporting period the return also covers methane and nitrous oxide, a combined CO₂ equivalent figure, and the share of emissions falling under the EU Emissions Trading System, which was extended to maritime transport that year.

What the figures do not tell you

They cover the reporting year, not the ship's life. They cover fuel burned, not fuel produced: the emissions from refining and shipping that fuel to the bunkering port sit outside the scheme entirely. And a voyage that begins and ends outside Europe is invisible here, even for a vessel that reports.

The scheme measures compliance-grade fuel data. It is the best public record of merchant shipping emissions that exists, and it is still a partial view of a global fleet.