Lorrendraaier publishes Global Flag State Ranking 2026: 148 flags measured on objective data, Singapore leads, Pakistan falls 35 places, the Dutch flag holds green at 22nd

Maritime services firm Lorrendraaier has published the 2026 edition of its Global Flag State Ranking, an independent assessment of 148 flag states based entirely on publicly verifiable data covering the period 2012-2025. The ranking was originally built as an internal tool to answer a question clients kept asking: how is this flag actually regarded internationally?

“Clients kept asking us what a flag’s international reputation is worth,” says Boudewijn Meijer, founder of Lorrendraaier. “Reputation is an opinion; port state control records are a fact. We built the ranking to replace the first with the second.”

How the ranking is built

The Global Flag State Ranking draws on five independent, publicly available sources, with no commercial input from registries or their agents:

• Paris MoU ranking and listing – port state control inspections in European and North Atlantic waters
• Tokyo MoU ranking and listing – port state control inspections in the Asia-Pacific region
• USCG Qualship 21 participation – United States Coast Guard recognition of consistently high-quality flags
• Ratification of conventions – adherence to key international maritime treaties, based on data from the International Chamber of Shipping
• Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index – the governance environment in which a register operates

Results are presented in three bands – green, yellow and red – corresponding to white, grey and black list status.

Key findings, 2026 edition

The top ten: Singapore, Norway, Denmark, Hong Kong, Japan, France, the Cayman Islands, Germany, the Bahamas and Luxembourg.

Risers: Saudi Arabia climbed from 27th to 20th and Panama from 81st to 73rd, both moving from the Paris MoU Grey List to the White List. The Isle of Man improved nine places to 12th and Sweden eight places to 14th.

Fallers: Pakistan dropped 35 places, from 52nd to 87th, following a collapse in its Tokyo MoU performance. Turkey fell 18 places to 49th and Egypt 25 places into the red band. Italy (26th) and Cyprus (33rd) both lost green status.

Europe: Of the 38 European flags in the ranking, 15 are green, 16 yellow and seven red. Denmark, France, Germany, Luxembourg and Malta are the strongest EU performers; Romania is the weakest at 85th.

New entrants: Six registers enter the ranking for the first time, all in the red band via the Tokyo MoU: Malawi, Mali, Aruba, Angola, Benin and Mozambique. Malawi – landlocked, and previously associated with fraudulent registration networks – enters at 79th; Mali, also landlocked, at 99th.

A position is only as good as the data behind it

Each edition also reflects how much is known about a register. San Marino fell 24 places to 106th, not because the register deteriorated, but because it appeared on the Paris MoU list for the first time – entering directly onto the Grey List and giving a fuller picture than was previously available. Registers that are inspected rarely, or not at all, are the hardest to assess on data; the ranking therefore sets out the reasoning behind each position alongside the position itself.