Seafarer certification
COVID-19 response information
We are currently at Alert Level 1
Seafarers with expired or expiring certificates
We have made changes that will allow seafarers to continue to work with expired certificates of competency, medicals and ancillaries, for a specific period of time.
Find out if this applies to you
If you hold one of the following certificates and it expired between 11 March 2020 and 30 June 2020:
- Seafarer certificate of competency
- Seafarer medical certificate
- First aid ancillary certificate for national certificates
or if your STCW ancillary certificate of proficiency that requires a five-early renewal has expired, download these guidelines to find out how this will apply to you:
Seafarer certificates expiring during COVID19[PDF: 204kB, 2 pages]
Processing your applications
Although our staff are now working from home, we have made changes so we can continue to provide services for you.
Read about the changes
Due to the current situation, we recommend that you only send your applications and documents to us electronically by email:
- We no longer require original documents from you, only electronic copies.
- Documents do not need to be certified or countersigned (e.g supporting documents for fit and proper person purposes).
- If you are renewing a certificate, we do not need the original expiring certificate.
When providing us with electronic copies of documents, please make sure the scanned copies are legible and of a good quality.
If you are unable to provide your application documents to us electronically, we recommend you contact us so we can make alternative arrangements for you.
Contact us
Find out how to contact us
The best way of contacting us is by email
We are monitoring our email and will respond to your enquiry as soon as possible.
Please use the following email addresses:
seafarers@maritimenz.govt.nz for all seafarer enquiries
exemptions.officer@maritimenz.govt.nz for all exemptions
enquiries@maritimenz.govt.nz for all other general enquiries
Alternatively you can use our online enquiry form.
Contact us online
If you don't have email
We are still answering the phones but there may be a delay in our response times.
New Zealand (toll free):0508 SEACERT or 0508 732 237
Calling from outside New Zealand: +64 4 473 0111
