Understanding amendments to the Maritime Code

China’s newly amended Maritime Code, approved on 28 October 2025 and implemented on 1 May 2026, represents the first comprehensive overhaul since its original enactment, expanding from 15 chapters and 278 articles to 16 chapters and 310 articles. Rooted in China’s status as a major maritime and trading power, it incorporates the latest advances in international maritime regulation and addresses pressing industry issues and legal shortcomings. It delivers breakthrough amendments across five critical dimensions: regulatory harmonisation, rights and interests protection, digital empowerment, ecological protection, and the rule of law in foreign-related matters, thereby cementing the legal foundation for China’s development as a maritime and shipping power.

Regulatory harmonisation

For years, the original Maritime Code imposed special restrictions on the carriage of goods by sea between domestic ports, fragmenting the rules governing domestic and international carriage. This created additional compliance costs for market participants and hindered the integration of the shipping market. The amendment tackles this structural weakness head-on by deleting the provision that “the stipulations of Chapter Four on contracts for the carriage of goods by sea do not apply to the carriage of goods by sea between ports of the People’s Republic of China”, thereby substantially unifying the legal rules applicable to domestic and international carriage. The revision co-ordinates both domestic and international markets and resources, simplifies shipping procedures, reduces transaction costs, further unleashes the vitality of the shipping market, and supports the creation of an efficient “dual circulation” framework.

For the carriage of passengers by sea, the amended law resolves the longstanding problem of “unequal compensation for equal loss of life”. It unifies the carrier’s limitation of liability for both domestic and international carriage of passengers, eliminating differential compensation standards based on the transport scenario. This affirms legal fairness and justice, and ensures protection of passengers’ lawful rights and interests.

Rights protection

Grounded in shipping practice, the revision strikes a reasonable balance between the rights and obligations of all relevant parties, including shipowners, cargo interests, passengers and insurers. By precisely recalibrating the allocation of rights and liabilities, it establishes a fairer and more stable market order.

In the carriage of goods by sea, the revision strengthens carrier liability, refines rules on delivery of goods, clarifies that the actual shipper has the right to require the carrier to issue a transport document, and grants the shipper the right to change the port of discharge by written notice. In the carriage of passengers by sea, it substantially increases the carrier’s limits of liability for personal injury, death and property damage, makes carrier liability insurance compulsory, and allows passengers to claim directly against the insurer, constructing a comprehensive safety net for passenger travel.

Meanwhile, the revision raises the limits of maritime liability for shipowners and salvors, taking due account of the risk-bearing capacity of shipping operators. It refines the rules governing marine insurance contracts by clarifying the insurer’s duty to highlight and explain standard terms, the rules on premium refunds, and the assured’s duty of fair presentation, thereby regulating the insurance market. It establishes clear rules on the registration of property rights for the emerging ship finance leasing sector, safeguarding the lessor’s ability to enforce its claims and supporting the healthy development of the ship financing industry. The revision also brings insurance on ships under construction within the scope of the law, clarifies the legal status of mutual insurance organisations, and enhances China’s capacity to provide marine insurance services.

Digital empowerment

In the digital economic transformation, a shift towards electronic shipping documents prevails in the industry. Yet the original legislation contained no clear regulation of electronic transport documents, leaving them in doubt, and impeding the progress of digitalisation across the maritime sector.

The amendment creates a bespoke set of rules for electronic transport records, embedding their legal recognition within the chapter governing contracts of carriage of goods by sea. It confirms that an electronic transport record satisfying prescribed legal conditions shall have the same legal force as its paper-based counterpart. It also authorises carriers and shippers to agree on the issuance and conversion of electronic transport records, while imposing explicit requirements as to the authenticity, traceability and identification of those records, thereby embracing the shift towards paperless, digitalised shipping and clearing the legal hurdles that previously hampered electronic documentation.

Anti-pollution mechanism

Safeguarding the marine ecosystem is a baseline requirement for the quality-driven development of the shipping sector. Addressing the needs of marine ecological progress, the amendment adds a new chapter devoted to liability for oil pollution damage from ships, constructing a well-ordered and complete framework for compensation and prevention. This closes the institutional void left by the original legislation in marine environmental protection.

The revised law stipulates that liability for ship-source oil pollution damage shall be channelled to the owner of the vessel, and establishes a dual-protection system comprising compulsory oil pollution liability insurance and a compensation fund. It sets out detailed provisions governing liability for pollution damage caused by the carriage of oil as cargo and by bunker oil respectively. It defines the master’s statutory duties in preventing and controlling marine pollution, prohibits contractual exclusion of environmental prevention and remediation obligations between salvor and salved party, and expressly excludes losses arising from the escape of ship-source pollutants from general average.

Foreign-related rules

The revised law mandates the compulsory application of Chinese law to contracts for the international carriage of goods by sea where the port of loading or discharge is located within China. It refines the conflict-of-laws rules for foreign-related maritime relationships, including ownership and mortgages over ships under construction, possessory liens on vessels, ship collisions and general average, and introduces the principle of party autonomy. It specifies that the law of the place where the vessel is under arrest applies to possessory liens, and the law of the place where the damage occurs applies to liability for ship-source oil pollution, bringing clarity and certainty to the adjudication of foreign-related maritime disputes. Concurrently, amendments addressing limitation periods for maritime claims and the unification of international compensation standards further align the code with prevailing international practice.

Xie Ming is a partner at ETR Law Firm
Xie Ming is also a deputy director of the Maritime and Admiralty Committee at Guangzhou Lawyers Association