The Complete STCW Course List for Seafarers (2026 Guide)
STCW courses are the mandatory safety and competence training every seafarer must complete before joining a commercial vessel. The confusing part is not the training itself — it’s working out which of the twenty-odd courses apply to your rank, your vessel type, and your flag state, and which ones quietly expire after five years while you’re at sea.
This guide maps every STCW course in one place: what each one covers, who legally needs it, and what has to be refreshed. Bookmark it — most seafarers get caught out by the refresher rules, not the entry requirements.
What are STCW courses?
STCW courses are training programmes set by the IMO’s International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers. They range from four basic safety modules that every crew member needs, through advanced firefighting and medical courses for senior ranks, to vessel-specific endorsements for tankers, passenger ships and polar waters. Each course must be delivered by a centre approved by a flag state administration.
The Convention entered into force on 28 April 1984. The 1995 amendments restructured it and created the STCW Code — the technical annex that actually specifies what each course must contain — and the 2010 Manila Amendments then introduced the five-year refresher cycles that trip up so many crew today. (IMO)
One thing to be clear on from the start: STCW sets the standard, but it does not issue your certificate. Your flag state — or a state whose certificates your flag recognises — does. A course completed at a centre your flag state doesn’t recognise is money spent for a certificate that won’t get you onboard. That distinction drives everything below.
The full STCW course list at a glance
Course | STCW reference | Who needs it | Typical duration* | 5-year refresher? |
Personal Survival Techniques (PST) | A-VI/1-1 | All seafarers | 1–1.5 days | Yes |
Fire Prevention & Fire Fighting (FPFF) | A-VI/1-2 | All seafarers | 1.5–2 days | Yes |
Elementary First Aid (EFA) | A-VI/1-3 | All seafarers | 1 day | No |
Personal Safety & Social Responsibilities (PSSR) | A-VI/1-4 | All seafarers | 1 day | No |
Security Awareness | A-VI/6-1 | All seafarers | 0.5 day | No |
Designated Security Duties (DSD) | A-VI/6-2 | Crew with assigned security duties | 1 day | No |
Proficiency in Survival Craft & Rescue Boats (PSCRB) | A-VI/2-1 | Crew in charge of survival craft | 3–4 days | Yes |
Proficiency in Fast Rescue Boats (FRB) | A-VI/2-2 | Crew operating fast rescue boats | 2 days | Yes |
Advanced Fire Fighting (AFF) | A-VI/3 | Officers and crew controlling fire operations | 4 days | Yes |
Medical First Aid | A-VI/4-1 | Nominated first-aid providers | 3–4 days | Flag-dependent |
Medical Care | A-VI/4-2 | Crew in charge of medical care onboard | 4–5 days | Flag-dependent |
Ship Security Officer (SSO) | A-VI/5 | Designated SSO | 2–3 days | No |
Oil & Chemical Tanker Cargo Operations (Basic / Advanced) | Reg. V/1-1 (Code A-V/1-1) | Tanker crew and officers | 2–5 days | No† |
Liquefied Gas Tanker Cargo Operations (Basic / Advanced) | Reg. V/1-2 (Code A-V/1-2) | Gas carrier crew and officers | 2–5 days | No† |
Passenger Ship Training (crowd management, crisis management & human behaviour, ro-ro passenger safety) | Reg. V/2 (Code A-V/2) | Crew designated on the muster list to assist passengers | 1–3 days | Yes‡ |
IGF Code Training (Basic / Advanced) | Reg. V/3 (Code A-V/3) | Crew on gas/low-flashpoint-fuelled ships | 2–5 days | Yes |
Polar Waters Training (Basic / Advanced) | Reg. V/4 (Code A-V/4) | Officers on ships in polar waters | 3–5 days | No† |
* Durations are indicative of common market practice and vary by flag state and training center.
† No five-yearly refresher is mandated by the Convention for tanker or polar waters training, but these endorsements are normally revalidated alongside your Certificate of Competency, and some flag states impose their own recency conditions. Confirm with your flag before assuming.
‡ The refresher requirement in regulation V/2 covers crowd management, crisis management and human behaviour, and ro-ro passenger safety. The lighter safety training for personnel providing direct service to passengers in passenger spaces is not caught by it.
Courses like GMDSS, Radar/ARPA, ECDIS and Bridge Resource Management sit under STCW Chapters II, III and IV rather than the safety chapters above. They form part of officer competence training rather than the universal safety set, so they’re covered separately in our STCW certifications service.
STCW Basic Safety Training: the four courses everyone starts with
Basic Safety Training — often written as BST, or “STCW-95” and “STCW-10” out of habit — is the entry gate. Without it, no reputable operator will sign you on. The four modules sit under Convention regulation VI/1, with the detailed syllabus for each in Code sections A-VI/1-1 to A-VI/1-4.
- Personal Survival Techniques (A-VI/1-1). Abandoning ship, lifejacket and immersion suit drills, liferaft boarding, survival in water. Almost always includes a pool session.
- Fire Prevention and Fire Fighting (A-VI/1-2). Fire theory, extinguisher types, hose handling, and a live-fire exercise wearing breathing apparatus in a smoke-filled compartment.
- Elementary First Aid (A-VI/1-3). CPR, bleeding control, shock, casualty movement — enough to hold a situation until medical help arrives.
- Personal Safety and Social Responsibilities (A-VI/1-4). Shipboard hazards, safe working practice, pollution prevention, employment rights, fatigue, and living and working alongside a multinational crew.
Most centres sell all four as a single 5-day package, and many bundle Security Awareness (Code section A-VI/6-1) in as a fifth half-day — which is why you’ll see the basic set described as either four or five modules depending on who’s advertising it. Both descriptions are correct; check which regulations are actually printed on your certificates.
Advanced STCW courses
Once you hold Basic Safety Training, the next tier is driven by the duties written into your muster list and your rank.
Proficiency in Survival Craft and Rescue Boats (A-VI/2-1) qualifies you to take charge of a lifeboat or liferaft — required for anyone designated as a survival craft commander, which in practice means most ratings working toward promotion. Fast Rescue Boats (A-VI/2-2) is a separate, additional course, needed only where the vessel actually carries an FRB.
Advanced Fire Fighting (A-VI/3) moves you from fighting a fire to directing the response: tactics, ventilation control, team command and post-incident investigation. Effectively mandatory for deck and engineer officers.
Medical First Aid (A-VI/4-1) and Medical Care (A-VI/4-2) are a ladder, not alternatives. The first covers nominated first-aiders; the second qualifies the person who takes medical charge onboard and coordinates radio medical advice, and is a requirement for masters and chief mates on most vessels.
Ship Security Officer (A-VI/5) and Designated Security Duties (A-VI/6-2) cover the ISPS Code side — ship security plans, access control, threat assessment and drills.
Which STCW courses do you actually need?
The honest answer is that your rank sets the floor and your vessel type sets the rest. This is the pattern we see most often across the crew we process documentation for:
Your role | Courses you’ll typically need |
Entry-level rating / trainee | Basic Safety Training (4 modules) + Security Awareness |
Experienced rating / bosun | The above + PSCRB, often Advanced Fire Fighting |
Deck or engineer officer | The above + Advanced Fire Fighting, Medical First Aid, plus Chapter II/III competence courses |
Master / Chief Mate / Chief Engineer | The above + Medical Care, often SSO |
Cruise and ferry crew | Basic Safety Training + passenger ship training under Reg. V/2. Which part depends on your muster-list role: all personnel need emergency familiarisation; staff serving passengers in passenger spaces need the A-V/2 safety training; anyone designated to assist passengers in an emergency needs crowd management |
Tanker crew | Basic Safety Training + Basic, then Advanced, tanker cargo operations for the cargo carried |
Offshore and rig personnel | Basic Safety Training + offshore-specific training: BOSIET initially, FOET as its refresher, or standalone HUET where helicopter transfer is the only exposure — see BOSIET vs HUET |
Superyacht crew | Basic Safety Training + PSCRB; larger yachts add Advanced Fire Fighting and security training |
Two caveats worth more than they look. First, offshore courses like BOSIET and HUET are not STCW courses — they’re OPITO-accredited industry standards that sit alongside STCW, and operators in the Gulf and North Sea usually want both sets. Note also that FOET is the periodic refresher for BOSIET rather than an alternative to it, which is a common and expensive mix-up. Our offshore courses page sets out how the two sets stack. Second, some flag states and some employers require more than the Convention minimum. The Convention is a floor, not a ceiling.
STCW refresher courses: what expires and what doesn’t
This is where most certificate problems actually originate, so it’s worth being precise.
Under Chapter VI, five certificates carry a five-year refresher requirement: Personal Survival Techniques, Fire Prevention and Fire Fighting, Advanced Fire Fighting, Proficiency in Survival Craft and Rescue Boats, and Proficiency in Fast Rescue Boats. Elementary First Aid and Personal Safety and Social Responsibilities are not caught by the Convention’s five-yearly requirement.
Two more sit under Chapter V and are widely missed: passenger ship training (crowd management, crisis management and human behaviour, ro-ro passenger safety) and IGF Code training for gas and low-flashpoint-fuelled ships. Both carry an explicit five-year cycle in the Convention text. If you work cruise, ferry or LNG-fuelled tonnage, these expire on you just as surely as your firefighting certificate does.
One nuance on Elementary First Aid and PSSR: the Convention’s five-yearly requirement covers only Personal Survival Techniques and Fire Prevention and Fire Fighting, so strictly those two are what needs re-evidencing. In practice, though, several administrations revalidate the whole Basic Training endorsement as a single unit, and most centres issue and renew all four modules as one certificate. Check what your flag actually renews rather than what the Code lists.
Flag-States STCW Courses
There’s also a second route out of a refresher that many seafarers don’t realise is in the Convention itself, not a flag-state favour. The standard wording requires you to either undertake appropriate refresher training or provide evidence of having achieved the required standard of competence within the previous five years. In practice that means documented seagoing service plus participation in the relevant onboard drills can satisfy the requirement — but the burden of proof sits with you, and it depends entirely on the quality of your discharge records and how your administration chooses to accept that evidence.
Practical advice: diary your PST and FPFF expiry dates the day you receive the certificates, and renew three months early. A lapsed refresher discovered during pre-joining checks costs you the contract, not just the course fee. If yours have already expired, we cover the recovery route in fixing expired CDC and STCW certificates.
What’s changing for STCW courses in 2026
Two developments are worth tracking.
Prevention of bullying and harassment is now part of PSSR. Amendments to the STCW Code added bullying and harassment prevention to the Personal Safety and Social Responsibilities syllabus, applying from 1 January 2026. If you completed PSSR before that date your certificate remains valid, but new courses and updated training material now include it.
A full revision of the Convention is underway. The IMO is running a comprehensive review of STCW — the first since the process that produced the Manila Amendments — covering digitalisation, decarbonised fuels, and automation, with a revised Convention anticipated later this decade. Nothing changes for course requirements yet.
Where to take STCW courses — and why approval matters more than price
Any centre can print a certificate. Far fewer hold live approval from a flag state administration that your employer’s vessel actually flies. The rejections we see most often are not failed courses — they’re valid courses taken at centres the flag state doesn’t recognise, or certificates that can’t be verified when a crewing manager checks them.
Before you pay for any STCW course, confirm three things: which flag state approval the centre holds, whether that approval covers the specific regulation you need (A-VI/2-1 approval doesn’t imply A-VI/3), and how the certificate can be verified online by an employer. Then check it lines up with the flag state of your seaman’s book — a mismatch between your documentation and your training is one of the more expensive mistakes in this industry to unwind.
Atomiq Group has processed STCW certification and renewals alongside seaman’s books for crew across the GCC, India, Singapore, Turkey, the UK and the USA. We’ll tell you which courses your target rank and vessel type actually require, arrange them through recognized centers, and make sure the paperwork matches the flag state on your book.
👉 Tell us your rank and target vessel — we’ll map your STCW course list
Frequently Asked Questions
How many STCW courses are there?
There are four mandatory basic safety courses under STCW regulation VI/1, commonly sold as a five-module package with Security Awareness added. Beyond that, roughly a dozen further courses apply depending on rank and vessel type, including advanced firefighting, survival craft, medical, security, tanker and passenger ship training.
How long do STCW courses take?
Basic Safety Training is usually delivered as a single package of about five days. Individual advanced courses run from one to five days each — Advanced Fire Fighting is typically four days, Medical Care four to five. Exact durations vary by flag state and training center, so confirm before booking travel.
Do STCW courses expire?
Several do. Personal Survival Techniques, Fire Prevention and Fire Fighting, Advanced Fire Fighting, survival craft and fast rescue boats all need refreshing every five years, as do passenger ship and IGF Code training. Elementary First Aid and PSSR are not caught. Documented recent competence can substitute for a refresher course.
Can I do STCW courses online?
Only partly. Theory elements of some courses can be delivered by approved distance learning, but the practical assessments — live-fire exercises, breathing apparatus, pool-based survival drills, liferaft boarding — must be completed in person at an approved center. Any provider offering a fully online Basic Safety Training certificate should be treated as a red flag.
Which STCW course should I do first?
Start with Basic Safety Training, the four modules under regulation VI/1. It’s the prerequisite for almost every seagoing job and for most advanced courses. Sort your seaman’s book and flag state at the same time, so your training is taken at a center that flag recognizes rather than after the fact.
Are BOSIET and HUET STCW courses?
No. BOSIET, FOET and HUET are OPITO-accredited offshore industry standards, not STCW courses. FOET is BOSIET’s refresher, not an alternative to it. Offshore employers in the Gulf and North Sea typically require both STCW Basic Safety Training and the relevant offshore certificate, so budget for both sets.
The short version
STCW courses stack in three layers: the four basic safety modules everyone needs, an advanced tier driven by your rank and duties, and vessel-specific endorsements for tankers, passenger ships, gas-fueled vessels and polar waters. The two things worth getting right are the refresher cycle — survival techniques, firefighting, advanced firefighting, survival craft and fast rescue boats under Chapter VI, plus passenger ship and IGF training under Chapter V, all on five years — and the approval status of the center you train at, which matters more than what the course costs.
If you’re not sure which list applies to you, that’s a five-minute conversation rather than a research project. Send us your rank, target vessel type and current certificates and we’ll come back with the exact courses you need and the flag-state route to get them recognised.
Related reading: STCW Certification Explained: A Complete Guide for Seafarers 2026 · Offshore Courses · What is a CDC Certificate? · Managing Multiple Crew Certifications
