What is a seafarer employment agreement (SEA)?

The seafarer employment agreement is not a formality signed and filed away; it is the legal foundation of everything that follows in a seafarer's time aboard, and both crew and companies rely on it being complete and accurate. Under the Maritime Labour Convention, every seafarer working on a ship covered by the convention must have a SEA, and the shipowner is responsible for making sure it exists, is properly signed, and reflects the real terms of employment, not a watered-down or generic version.

Before signing, the seafarer is entitled to read the agreement, ask questions, and take independent advice if needed; signing under pressure or without a genuine opportunity to review it defeats the purpose of the requirement and is a compliance failure that Port State Control inspectors are trained to look for. The agreement must set out, at minimum, the seafarer's full name, date of birth, birthplace, the shipowner's details, the place and date the agreement was signed, the capacity in which the seafarer is employed, the wage or the formula for calculating it, paid annual leave entitlement, termination provisions and notice periods, health and social security protection, and repatriation rights and arrangements.

Where a collective bargaining agreement applies, either the CBA itself or a summary of its relevant provisions must be available aboard alongside the SEA, and where the two overlap, the more favourable term to the seafarer normally applies. A signed copy of the SEA must be kept in a place accessible to the seafarer, in a language they understand, along with an English copy if the CBA is not in English, since PSC officers and flag state inspectors need to verify it during inspections.

In practice, disputes over wages, unpaid overtime, premature termination, or repatriation almost always come back to what the SEA actually says, so a seafarer should keep their own copy, check that the wage figures match what is actually paid into their account, and query any discrepancy immediately rather than after the contract is finished, when it is much harder to resolve. Manning agents and crewing departments that issue sloppy or incomplete SEAs expose both the seafarer and the company to detention risk under MLC inspections, and repeated deficiencies can affect a company's compliance record.