UK ETS scope expansion: maritime sector
Read the full outcome
Detail of outcome
November 2025
The UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS) Authority has published its main response to this consultation, which sets out the final policy detail ahead of the inclusion of domestic maritime emissions in the UK ETS) from July 2026.
This includes decisions on:
- the surrender period in the scheme first year
- requirement for a Document of Compliance
- adjusting the UK ETS cap to account for the inclusion of domestic maritime emissions
- the treatment of offshore ships
- further exemptions
- the mechanism to ensure carbon pricing parity across the Irish Sea
- the future review of the 5000GT threshold
The UK ETS Authority has launched a new consultation on the proposed expansion of the UK ETS to a share of emissions from international voyages
July 2025
The UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS) Authority published an interim response to this consultation, to enable operators to prepare for the scheme and express interest in voluntary onboarding with the Environment Agency.
The response contains key details on the expansion to maritime, including:
- our intention to launch the UK ETS Maritime regime on 1 July 2026
- the scope, which will include UK domestic journeys and emissions while in UK ports for vessels of 5000 gross tonnage (GT) and above
- details on monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) requirements and who is responsible for complying with the scheme
The Authority will publish a full Authority Response in due course, which will address the remaining questions including those relating to exemptions, Northern Ireland routes and the cap adjustment, amongst other proposals.
Detail of feedback received
We received over 150 responses from a wide range of organisations, including:
- maritime, ports and fuelling associations
- maritime operators
- classification societies and verifiers
non-governmentnon-governmental organisations(NGOs)(NGOs)- academia and think tanks
- UK Climate Change Committee
(CCC)(CCC)
Original consultation
Consultation description
The UK Emissions Trading Scheme (UK ETS) Authority (UK Government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs for Northern Ireland) is seeking input on a number of proposals to expand the scheme to the maritime sector.
We envisage that including maritime within the UK ETS can help overcome a key barrier to decarbonising the sector, which is that the prices of maritime fuels currently do not reflect their environmental costs. Including the maritime sector within the scheme could also strengthen the incentive to adopt low carbon fuels, and support deployment of fuel-efficient technologies and the introduction of fuel-efficient operating practices.
The purpose of this consultation is to provide more detail and consult on the implementation of how maritime will be incorporated in the scheme from 2026 and to propose and consult on potential future expansion of the UK ETS to additional maritime emissions. In particular, it seeks views on:
- the scope of the scheme (definition of a domestic voyage, thresholds for inclusion, the inclusion of methane and nitrous oxide emissions and exemptions from the scheme)
- details around how to adjust the UK ETS cap to include emissions from the maritime sector
- participating in the scheme (regulatory regime and operator requirements, monitoring, reporting and verification, point of obligation and guidance)
- impacts of the scheme (decarbonisation impacts, potential distributional impacts and carbon leakage risk; equality considerations)
- potential future expansion of the UK ETS to additional maritime emissions, with a future review of the threshold and coverage of international routes
This consultation is open to anyone, but we expect it to be of greatest interest to:
- the shipping industry
- non-governmental organisations (NGOs)
- academics and thinktanks
- any individual or organisation that has an interest, directly or indirectly in the expansion of the UK ETS and/or the adjustment to the cap of the scheme
Read our consultation privacy notice.
Documents
Updates to this page
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Authority interim response published.
Update history
2025-11-25 17:00
UK ETS Authority final response and impact assessment published.
2025-07-21 18:18
Authority interim response published.
2024-11-28 17:00
First published.