The Crew Certification Tracking Matrix is a free Excel and printable template for tracking seafarer certificate expiry across a crew or a fleet. It covers 20 documents per seafarer — seaman book or CDC/SIRB, Certificate of Competency and the flag state’s separate endorsement of it, medical fitness, ten STCW certificates and BOSIET/HUET — colours every date by days remaining, and counts blank cells as gaps rather than treating them as fine.
The certificate that stops a crew change is almost never the one you were watching
Everybody watches the seaman book. It has a date on the cover, it is the document with the name of the job on it, and it is the one the seafarer asks about.
Then a joining is held because a flag-state endorsement lapsed in April, or because the medical ran out three weeks before the contract did, or — most often — because nobody could produce a copy of an advanced firefighting certificate that may well be perfectly valid and is sitting in someone’s WhatsApp from 2023.
That last one is the interesting failure. It is not a compliance problem. It is a filing problem wearing a compliance problem’s clothes. And it is the reason this template counts blank cells and puts the number in its own column, instead of quietly leaving them white like every tracker we have been sent.
What is in it Crew Certification Tracking Matrix
Two files. Same structure, different jobs.
File | Use it for |
Excel (.xlsx) | Day-to-day tracking. Type expiry dates, cells colour themselves against today, rows sort by what expires first. Five sheets: Read me, Crew Matrix, Document Register, Reference, Lists |
Printable (.pdf) | Three A4 landscape pages you can put on a wall or hand to a superintendent. A blank grid, a renewal action list, and the reference tables |
The Excel file tracks these per seafarer:
Group | Documents |
Identity and service | Seaman book / CDC / SIRB · passport · seafarer visa or entry permit |
Competency | Certificate of Competency · flag-state endorsement of the CoC · GMDSS GOC |
Medical | Medical fitness certificate · yellow fever certificate |
STCW basic | PST (A-VI/1-1) · FPFF (A-VI/1-2) · EFA (A-VI/1-3) · PSSR (A-VI/1-4) |
STCW advanced | AFF (A-VI/3) · PSCRB (A-VI/2-1) · FRB (A-VI/2-2) · Medical First Aid (A-VI/4) · Security (A-VI/6) · Tanker (A-V/1) |
Offshore | BOSIET · HUET / FOET |
Delete the columns you do not use. It is a spreadsheet, not a product.
The two columns most crew lists leave out
The flag endorsement. A Certificate of Competency and the flag state’s endorsement of that CoC are two documents with two issuing bodies and two expiry dates. On a crew list we are sent for review, the CoC is almost always there and the endorsement is missing about as often as it is present. It gets its own column, next to the CoC, so the gap is visible rather than inferred.
The blank. Every tracker we have seen leaves an unrecorded certificate white, which reads as “nothing to worry about here”. In practice an undocumented certificate and an expired one produce the same outcome on the day. The crew certification tracking matrix gives blanks their own count and their own grey, and the row status says Nothing recorded rather than staying silent.
Which STCW certificates actually need a five-year refresher
Not everything in the folder renews on the same cycle, and the ones that never need rebooking are the ones people keep rebooking.
Certificate | STCW reference | Five-year refresher? |
Personal Survival Techniques (PST) | A-VI/1-1 | Yes |
Fire Prevention & Fire Fighting (FPFF) | A-VI/1-2 | Yes |
Advanced Fire Fighting (AFF) | A-VI/3 | Yes |
Proficiency in Survival Craft & Rescue Boats (PSCRB) | A-VI/2-1 | Yes |
Fast Rescue Boat (FRB) | A-VI/2-2 | Yes |
Elementary First Aid (EFA) | A-VI/1-3 | No |
Personal Safety & Social Responsibilities (PSSR) | A-VI/1-4 | No |
Security Awareness / Designated Security Duties | A-VI/6 | No |
Medical First Aid / Medical Care | A-VI/4 | Not under STCW — but several administrations and most employers ask for it |
Tanker familiarisation and advanced tanker courses | A-V/1 | No refresher; the endorsement is revalidated with sea service |
The full explanation, including the renewal timeline and what an administration will ask for, is on our STCW renewal guide. This page does not repeat it.
“Seaman books are valid for five years” is not a fact
It is repeated everywhere, including by agencies that should know better, and the administrations do not agree on it.
Flag state | What the authority publishes | What to do in the matrix |
Liberia | Five years | Five-year cycle, 90-day lead |
Bahamas | Ten Years | Do not enter an invented date. Leave the cell blank and record the issue date in the Document Register |
Panama | 5 Years | Our Panama seaman book page states the printed book runs five years and the digital temporary certificate three months. Confirm against the document in your hand |
Palau, Belize, Honduras, St Kitts & Nevis | 5 Years | Confirm with the administration at application. Do not carry the five-year assumption across |
Liberian Registry published SIRB validity. Autoridad Marítima de Panamá published fee schedules but no validity period.
If a provider tells you five years across the board, that is a useful thing to have learned about the provider.
Setting your lead time
The template defaults to 90 days before expiry, and 90 days is a compromise, not a rule.
An STCW refresher can usually be booked inside three months. A flag-state endorsement often cannot, particularly if the seafarer’s underlying CoC needs anything doing to it first. If one administration in your fleet consistently takes longer, change the 90 in the Start renewal by column to whatever that administration actually takes. The number is in one place for that reason.
When a spreadsheet stops being the right answer
Around 150 active seafarers, in our experience, a spreadsheet stops being a tracker and starts being a second job. There are no reminders, no permissions, no audit log, and one person holds the master copy. If that describes you, the honest answer is crewing software, and we would rather say so than sell you a template you have outgrown.
Below that, this works, and it works better than most of what is sold.
Send us the register and we will read it for you
Fill in the Document Register sheet, export it, and email it to maritime@atomiqgroup.com. You get back a per-person gap report — who is ready to file, who is missing what, and whose certificate expires inside your window. No charge, no commitment, and it tells you whether the crew change holds before you commit to it.
WhatsApp +971 55 458 3416 · +971 52 943 5973 · India +91 8175056856 · #903 Regal Tower, Business Bay, Dubai · 09:30–18:00
Seaman Books is a documentation and processing partner and part of Atomiq Management Consultancies EST., operating from Dubai since 2011. We prepare, verify and file seafarer documentation with seven flag-state administrations — see our crew documentation services for shipping companies. The flag-state administration issues the document; we prepare, verify and file the application. We do not issue documents, and no agency can guarantee a government outcome.
Frequently asked questions
Is the crew certificate tracking template really free?
Yes. Both files download without an email address, a sign-up or a watermark. Copy it, rebrand it, put it on your intranet, send it to your fleet. A link back is appreciated if you publish it, but nothing requires one.
What format is it in?
Excel (.xlsx), which opens in Excel, LibreOffice and Google Sheets, and a three-page A4 landscape PDF for printing. The Excel version does the date calculations; the PDF is a blank grid to fill in by hand.
How many seafarers does it handle?
Sixty rows in the Crew Matrix and two hundred lines in the Document Register as shipped, and you can add more. Past roughly 150 active seafarers a spreadsheet stops being a sensible way to do this.
Does it track flag-state endorsements separately from the CoC?
Yes, and that is deliberate. They are two documents with two expiry dates, and the endorsement is the one most commonly missing when we review a crew list.
Does it include STCW refresher dates automatically?
No. It calculates from the expiry dates you enter rather than assuming a cycle, because refresher requirements differ by certificate and validity periods differ by administration. The Reference sheet shows which STCW certificates carry a five-yearly refresher and which do not.
Can Seaman Books check our crew list for us?
Yes. Send the completed Document Register to maritime@atomiqgroup.com and you get a per-person gap report at no charge.
