The IMO Adopts a First Global Code for Autonomous Ships

The non-mandatory International Code of Safety for Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships was adopted at the International Maritime Organization's Maritime Safety Committee 111th session, held from 13 to 22 May 2026 in London, and took effect on 1 July. It applies to cargo ships covered under SOLAS Chapter I, and — importantly — includes provisions for individual autonomous or remote functions even where crew remain on board.

The provision with the most engineering content concerns remote operations centres. The code sets requirements for them, with particular emphasis on cybersecurity and system design, and a centre is subject to certification by the flag administration of the vessel it serves. The master retains responsibility for the ship at all times, including when not physically on board.

That combination — a certifiable control centre, an accountable master who may be ashore, and a code that covers partial autonomy — is what turns remote operation from a demonstration into something with an audit trail. A remote operations centre now has a named international reference against which to design its control links, its tolerance for latency and loss, its sensor redundancy, and the human-machine interface an operator uses to make decisions about a vessel they cannot see out of a window.

The timetable gives the industry a defined runway. The IMO plans to re-establish the MASS working group in December 2026 for an experience-building phase, develop a mandatory code from 2028, adopt it by 1 July 2030 and bring it into force on 1 January 2032. That leaves roughly two years of voluntary operation in which reference deployments can be built and certified before compliance stops being optional.

For anyone building the shoreside infrastructure the useful reading is that this is now a regulated control system rather than a monitoring dashboard. The requirements that follow — deterministic behaviour under degraded connectivity, a defined safe state, logged operator actions, and a cybersecurity posture somebody will inspect — are familiar from other safety-related industries and unfamiliar to a lot of maritime software.