Antigua and Barbuda

Antigua and Barbuda is a two-island Caribbean state that also runs one of the world's larger merchant ship registries. That is why its flag appears on cargo ships that never go near the Caribbean, among them the bulk carrier Cape Dao, torpedoed off Oman's Musandam Governorate on 23 September 2026.

Antigua and Barbuda runs an open register. An owner of any nationality may register a vessel, pay the fee and fly the flag, without the ownership link to the country that a closed register demands. The fleet runs to close to 1,400 ships of more than 11 million gross tons, among the top 20 merchant fleets by ship count. The Department of Marine Services and Merchant shipping administers it from St John's, with offices at Oldenburg and Bremerhaven in Germany, where much of the fleet is managed from.

The duties follow the ship. A flag state must investigate a casualty and file a seafarer death into the international count that insurers and unions use. A small administration thousands of miles from The Gulf, acting for a ship with an Indian CREW attacked by nobody WHO will admit it, is one reason those deaths reach the register late.