The US Coast Guard published a final rule on Friday, 25 September, in the Federal Register (91 FR 60846) amending 46 CFR parts 11 and 12 so that personnel on US-flagged passenger ships carrying more than 12 passengers on international voyages must complete passenger ship emergency familiarization before they are assigned to shipboard duties. The same rule expands crowd management training to ratings qualified under Chapters II, III and VII of the STCW Convention. The docket is USCG-2022-0649, RIN 1625-AC68. The rule is effective 26 October 2026. That Federal Register text is the primary for this note. It is not a rewrite of CCC 12’s cargo-securing or alcohol-fuel work, of the Paris and Tokyo MoU cargo-securing CIC, or of Friday’s India–Liberia seafarer group.
The familiarization duty is written for all shipboard personnel: Masters, officers, ratings and the rest of the complement, including people who never stand a bridge or engine watch. It must be appropriate to each person’s capacity, duties and responsibilities in an emergency. It does not require Coast Guard course approval. The company, under STCW Regulation I/14, has to make sure the training happens and that documentary evidence is kept and can be shown. Port State Control officers and Coast Guard inspectors may ask for that evidence. The syllabus is the one in Section A-V/2 paragraph 1 of the STCW Code: general safety features of the ship, location of essential safety equipment including life-saving appliances, the importance of personal conduct when emergency plans are run, and restrictions on the use of elevators in an emergency. It also includes communicating with passengers in the working language of the ship, communicating safety information non-verbally, and understanding one of the languages in which emergency announcements may be broadcast.
Crowd management is the second, narrower change. Before this rule, that approved or accepted course sat on Masters, officers and people named on the muster list to assist passengers. From 26 October it also sits on ratings qualified under STCW Chapters II, III and VII. Those courses still need Coast Guard approval or acceptance under 46 CFR part 10, subpart D. Crisis management and human behaviour, and the ro-ro passenger-safety, cargo-safety and hull-integrity tier, remain approved or accepted training for the people already in those boxes. Safety training for personnel who provide a direct service to passengers in passenger spaces still does not need course approval and can be done on board or ashore. The five STCW tiers are stacked. Familiarization is the base that every person on the ship now has to show.
A 31-day clock is a company file, not a National Maritime Center endorsement
The Coast Guard is incorporating the STCW Consolidated Edition 2017, including the 2016 passenger-ship amendments that entered into force on 1 July 2018. US regulations in 46 CFR chapter I, subchapter B, had still been pointing at the Convention and Code as amended through 2011. The final rule closes that lag for passenger ships on international voyages. It does not create a new Merchant Mariner Credential endorsement. Familiarization is ship-specific. It is given before a person takes up duties. The documentary evidence is what an inspector will ask for, not a new page in the credential. Companies that have been treating STCW V/2 as a course list for officers only now have to account for hotel staff, extra personnel and every rating who is part of the complement.
The affected fleet is small and identifiable. The Coast Guard’s regulatory analysis, using the Marine Information for Safety and Law Enforcement database, counted 51 US-flagged passenger ships owned by 41 operating companies that carry more than 12 passengers on international voyages. Certificates of inspection on those ships produced a training population of 1,230 personnel across two crews: 206 officers, 44 specified ratings and 980 additional personnel for familiarization, and the same 44 ratings for the expanded crowd-management duty. The 51 hulls break as 4 Subchapter H passenger vessels of 100 or more gross tons, 9 Subchapter K small passenger vessels, and 38 Subchapter T small passenger vessels. The average ship in that mix carries about 13 mariners who fall under the rule and works with two crews. The analysis assumes the US-flag international passenger fleet declines by about one ship a year over the ten-year window. That is a Coast Guard planning assumption, not a forecast operators should crew against.
The money is concentrated on the familiarization drill, not on the extra ratings course. The Coast Guard estimates undiscounted average annual costs of about $379,253, in 2023 dollars, for companies to deliver passenger ship emergency familiarization, and about $22,104 a year for the 44 ratings to complete crowd management. Together that is about $403,486 annualized, or $3,624,350 over ten years discounted at 2 percent. The Office of Management and Budget did not designate the rule a significant regulatory action under Executive Order 12866. Two public comments on the 21 June 2024 notice of proposed rulemaking both supported the change. The methodology did not move; wages and population were updated from a 2021 to a 2023 base. The Coast Guard does not have compliance data from the voluntary period, so the analysis treats the fleet as starting from zero on 26 October. Operators who can already show ship-specific familiarization records are not required to repeat a classroom they have already documented. They are required to produce the paper.
Inspectors will ask for evidence, not for a new course code
The operational reading is a matrix, not a single booking. Every person joining a US-flag passenger ship on an international voyage needs familiarization evidence before they are assigned duties. People who serve passengers in passenger spaces need the additional safety-training evidence. Masters, officers, Chapter II/III/VII ratings and muster-list assistants need an approved or accepted crowd-management course. People named for passenger safety in an emergency need approved or accepted crisis-management and human-behaviour training. People with immediate responsibility for embarking and disembarking passengers, loading, discharging or securing cargo, or closing hull openings on ro-ro passenger ships need the passenger-safety, cargo-safety and hull-integrity course, including CSS Code securing, ramp and door procedures, and ro-ro space atmosphere. Competence for the approved tiers is to be maintained on a five-year cycle with relevant seagoing service. Familiarization and direct-service safety training do not go through the National Maritime Center as approved courses. They still have to be evidenced.
Foreign-flag passenger ships calling in the United States are not the addressee of 46 CFR 11.1105 and 12.905. They remain under their own flag’s STCW V/2 implementation. What changes for them is the inspection question they may meet in a US port: can the Master show that personnel have the familiarization and crowd-management evidence STCW already required? The US rule is how the United States will answer that question on its own ships from 26 October. It is not a new Port State Control circular for every cruise ship in Miami. Do not brief it as a SOLAS amendment, a passenger-ship construction change, or a reason to hold a foreign-flag crew on the dock. Do not collapse it into the cargo-securing CIC that runs through 30 November. That campaign is about Cargo Securing Manuals and lashing. This docket is about who can move passengers in a fire, a flooding or an abandonment.
The 26 October date is less than a month from the Federal Register publication. Hotel departments, seasonal ratings and riding contractors are the people most likely to be missing a file. A company that waits for the next dry-dock or the next approved-course calendar will assign people to duties without the evidence the rule now makes mandatory. The Coast Guard’s own analysis says it cannot assume the industry is already doing this. That is the operational implication: treat 26 October as a joining-letter and ISM-record date, not as a credential-renewal date.
What Operators Should Note
- Put 26 October 2026 on the joining letter, not only on the training matrix. No person is to be assigned to shipboard duties on a US-flag passenger ship in international trade until passenger ship emergency familiarization appropriate to that person’s emergency role has been completed and recorded. That includes hotel staff, extra personnel and ratings who never take a watch.
- Keep familiarization off the approved-course list and on the company file. The familiarization tier does not need Coast Guard course approval. Direct-service passenger safety training does not either and may be done on board or ashore. Crowd management, crisis management and the ro-ro hull-integrity tier do need approved or accepted courses. Mixing those two piles is how a ship ends up with a classroom certificate and no ship-specific familiarization record, or the reverse.
- Add Chapter II, III and VII ratings to the crowd-management booking list. Masters, officers and muster-list assistants were already in that box. The final rule adds the specified ratings. The Coast Guard’s count on the 51-ship fleet is 44 such ratings across two crews. If a rating is qualified under those chapters and is part of the complement, the approved or accepted course is now required before assignment.
- Build a pack an inspector can ask for in one sitting. STCW I/14 makes the company responsible for keeping training documentation accessible. PSC or a Coast Guard inspector may ask to see familiarization evidence for any person on board. A spreadsheet in the office is not enough if the Master cannot produce the record at the gangway.
- Write elevator, language and life-saving-appliance items into the ship-specific brief. A-V/2 paragraph 1 is not a generic induction. It names general safety features, LSA locations, conduct during emergency plans, elevator restrictions, working-language and non-verbal communication with passengers, and understanding the language of emergency announcements. A familiarization that omits those items will not match the rule the inspector is holding.
- Do not apply 46 CFR 11.1105 to a foreign-flag cruise ship as if it were a US regulation. Foreign flags keep their own V/2 implementation. US-port inspectors may still ask for STCW evidence. That is not this docket. This docket is the 51 US-flag international passenger ships and the 41 companies that operate them.
- Keep this file separate from CCC 12 and from the cargo-securing CIC. Lashing software and the Paris/Tokyo campaign run through 30 November are cargo-operations stories already on this blog. Docket USCG-2022-0649 is passenger emergency competence. Do not merge the two into one “training update.”
Regulas Shipping will keep lining the 25 September Coast Guard passenger-training rule against the existing STCW V/2 tiers and the cargo-securing CIC so operators can treat 26 October as a joining-letter and evidence date, not as a new credential or a foreign-flag hold.
