RPSL Explained: How Indian Seafarers Can Check if a Crew Manning Agency is Licensed

Before you send your CV, before you pay for a course someone recommended, and long before you book a train to Mumbai for an interview, there is one check worth five minutes of your time.

Does the company placing you hold a valid RPSL?

Most seafarers have heard the term. Fewer know what it actually guarantees, and fewer still know that the answer is published free, by the regulator, and takes two minutes to look up. This guide covers what RPSL is, what protection it gives you, how to verify any agency yourself, and what the regulator’s own enforcement labels mean when you see them.

One thing has changed recently that affects many older RPSL guides, so we’ll start there.

First: the maritime regulatory framework is transitioning

India’s maritime regulatory framework is transitioning to the Directorate General of Maritime Administration (DGMA) under the Merchant Shipping Act, 2025. Section 7 of the Act provides for the Director-General of Maritime Administration.

The current official government portal is dgma.gov.in.

Why this matters to you practically: many RPSL articles online still say “DG Shipping” and may refer to older portal links or terminology. Before relying on any link, use the current official DGMA portal and confirm the live register yourself.

Both terms still appear in circulation, including on older official documents and online resources, so you may still see DG Shipping referenced alongside DGMA during the current transition.

What is RPSL?

RPSL stands for Recruitment and Placement Service Licence.

It is the licence that authorises an entity in India – a company, a partnership firm or a proprietorship – to recruit and place seafarers on vessels owned by Indian or foreign shipowners, whatever flag the vessel flies.

The rule behind it is blunt. No person may, directly or indirectly, carry on the business of recruiting or placing seafarers in India on behalf of an employer or shipowner, Indian or foreign, unless registered and licensed under the RPS Rules.

There is no informal version of this. An agent working from a mobile number without a licence is not a lightly-regulated agent. They are operating outside the framework entirely.

The legal basis, briefly

The framework sits under Section 95(3) of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958. The Merchant Shipping (Recruitment and Placement of Seafarers) Rules, 2005 came into force in March 2005 and were superseded by the Merchant Shipping (Recruitment and Placement of Seafarers) Rules, 2016, notified as G.S.R. 169(E), in force from 15 February 2016.

Alongside them, after India ratified the Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, the Merchant Shipping (Maritime Labour) Rules, 2016 came into force on 29 February 2016, later amended by the Merchant Shipping (Maritime Labour) Rules, 2021, in force from 28 June 2021.

Licensing and renewal are handled by the Seamen’s Employment Offices, established under Section 12 of the Merchant Shipping Act, 1958, presently at three centres – Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. The Director of each office carries out these duties under the jurisdictional Principal Officer, Mercantile Marine Department.

You don’t need to memorise any of that. You need to know it exists, because it is the reason a licensed agency behaves differently from an unlicensed one.

The part that protects you most: the no-fee rule

If you read only one section of this guide, read this one.

Under MLC 2006, Standard A1.4, paragraph 5, no fees or other charges for recruitment, placement or for providing employment may be borne by the seafarer directly or indirectly, in whole or in part.

There are three exceptions, and they are narrow. You can legitimately be asked to bear the cost of:

• your national statutory medical certificate
• your national seafarer’s book
• your passport or similar personal travel documents

Visa costs are not on that list. Under the same Standard, visas are the shipowner’s expense.

Everything else – a registration fee, a processing fee, a “documentation charge”, a refundable deposit, a payment to secure a berth – is a placement fee wearing a different name. A licensed agency is paid by the shipowner. Not by you.

What Changed In 2022

The 2022 amendments to the Convention strengthened a further protection. Recruitment and placement services must maintain a system of protection – insurance or an equivalent measure – to compensate seafarers for monetary loss caused by the failure of the service or the shipowner to meet obligations under the seafarer’s employment agreement. The amendment added an explicit duty: you must be informed of your rights under that system before or during engagement.

If nobody has ever mentioned this to you at any point in an engagement process, that itself tells you something about how the process is being run.

The clause nobody quotes and the one that should worry you

Rule 3 of the RPS Rules sets out who the rules apply to. Read the third limb carefully:

Nothing in the rules applies to seafarers who seek employment through unlicensed entities, or directly with foreign shipowners or employers.

That single line is the whole argument for verifying before you sign.

The protections above the fee prohibition, the agency’s defined responsibilities, the regulator’s power to act against the agency, the bank guarantee sitting behind it – are attached to the licensed channel. Step outside it and you have not simply chosen a riskier agent. You have placed yourself outside the framework that would otherwise have someone to complain to on your behalf.

There is a second, colder consequence. Seafarers routinely report that sea service obtained through an unlicensed placement creates problems later, at documentation and certification stages. Whatever the position in a given case, it is not a fight worth having at MEO or Mate’s exam time over an agent you never checked.

What Licensed Agencies Are Actually Required To Do

An RPSL is not a one-time formality. The framework keeps a licensed agency under continuing obligation:

Annual inspection. Under Rule 13, a registered RPSL must undergo inspection by a recognised inspecting authority — annually, and again at renewal, at any change of name, or at any change of place of business.

Defined responsibilities. Rule 5 sets out the responsibilities of RPS agencies. These are obligations, not marketing promises.

A bank guarantee. Every licensed agency must hold a bank guarantee with the directorate, scaled to the number of seafarers it places:

Monthly reporting. Licensed agencies report seafarer movements – name, CDC number, vessel, flag, sign-on and sign-off dates so that a record of your engagement exists with the authority and not only in the agency’s own files.

The bank guarantee is the detail worth sitting with. It means a licensed agency has real money lodged with the regulator against its conduct. An unlicensed agent has nothing lodged anywhere, which is precisely why the unlicensed route can afford to promise more.

How to Verify An Agency – Step by Step

The register is public, free and maintained by the regulator.

1. Go to the DGMA website at dgma.gov.in and open the Crew Division section.

2. Open the list of Valid / Invalid / Temporarily Suspended RPSL. Three categories, published separately. The distinction is the whole point – a company can genuinely have held a licence and not hold a valid one today.

3. Search by company name or RPSL number. Use the browser’s find function if the list is long.

4. Check the status first. It must appear in the valid list. Invalid, expired, suspended or withdrawn all mean the same thing for your decision today.

5. Check the expiry date. A licence valid today may expire before your contract ends.

6. Match the details. Registered company name, address and issuing office should match exactly what the recruiter gave you. A near-match is not a match – name similarity is a known tactic.

Check the register, not the screenshot

Agencies send certificate images on WhatsApp. Images are editable, licences expire after the image was taken, and a real certificate number can be attached to a company name that isn’t the one contacting you.

Ask for the RPSL number by all means. Then go and look it up yourself. A licensed agency will expect you to, and will not be offended.

How to Read an RPSL Number

Indian RPSL numbers follow the pattern RPSL-MUM-###### – a prefix for the issuing office, then the licence number. Ours is RPSL MUM-162374, issued at Mumbai. Check it on the register while you’re there; that’s what the register is for.

What “Blocked”, “Suspended” and “Withdrawn” Actually Mean

When the directorate takes action against an agency, it publishes the action with a specific label. The labels are not interchangeable:

• Blocked – the agency’s e-Governance privileges for signing on seafarers have been blocked pending a show cause notice and investigation. It may still sign off seafarers already onboarded or e-migrated through it.
• Suspended – following a show cause notice and investigation, the licence has been suspended by the competent authority for a specified period.
• Withdrawn – following a show cause notice and investigation, the licence has been permanently revoked.

A suspension is not necessarily permanent and can be lifted once compliance issues are resolved. But it is not a technicality either, and it is absolutely not something to accept a job through while it is in force.

The directorate also publishes a blacklist of defaulter shipping companies, RPSL holders and ships. It is worth a look alongside the main register.

Warning Signs Worth Walking Away From

1. You are asked to pay anything for the placement itself – under any label
2. The agency will not give you its RPSL number when asked plainly
3. The number doesn’t appear on the register, or appears under a different company name
4. A rank, a vessel or a salary is guaranteed before your medical and documents are cleared
5. Nothing is in writing, and there is no seafarer’s employment agreement to read before you travel
6. You are pressured to pay the same day, in cash, or to a personal account
7. The only contact is a personal mobile number, with no registered office you can visit
8. You are told the register is “not updated” and shouldn’t be relied on

That last one deserves its own line. The register is the regulator’s own record. Anyone telling you to disregard it is telling you something about themselves.

If You Have Already Paid

Do this in order, and don’t let embarrassment stop you – this happens to experienced seafarers too.

1. Keep everything. Receipts, bank transfer records, chat messages, call logs, names, account numbers, any documents you were given. Screenshot conversations before they can be deleted.

2. Report to the directorate. Use the seafarer grievance channel on the DGMA website, and contact the Crew Division and the relevant Mercantile Marine Department with the company name, RPSL number if there was one, and the sequence of events.

3. If money was taken under false pretences, file a police complaint under the applicable cheating and fraud provisions. Do this alongside the regulatory complaint, not instead of it.

4. If wages are being deducted onboard, use the ship’s onboard complaint procedure under MLC Regulation 5.1.5 and keep every wage statement.

Report it even if you don’t expect your money back. Enforcement action against unlicensed agents is built from complaints, and the next seafarer they approach benefits from yours.