Traficom, the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency, under the Ship Safety Act as amended in December 2019.
At twelve passengers
If you run crewed charter, the boat is a vuokravene, a hire boat, and the inspection and special equipment requirements for that category were abolished on 1 June 2020. There is no survey requirement at all. The CE design category maps onto domestic traffic areas I and II. A scheduled service takes a different route, requiring a conformity assessment by a notified body, a Traficom certificate and an initial survey.
At twenty passengers
A domestic passenger ship survey. Self-inspection is not available to passenger ships, so the recurring burden is four surveys and two bottom inspections every five years. The Traficom rule explicitly covers vessels under 24 m and hulls that are not steel.
Who may drive it
A charter boat skipper's certificate on the charter route. On the scheduled-service route the boat is treated as a cargo ship for manning and competency purposes.
Hiring it out without a crew
This is the lightest option of all. A boat hired out without a crew is an ordinary recreational craft and the CE regime governs it. No commercial certificate, no survey, and no professional skipper's licence.
Where the engine matters
We found no national engine restriction in Finland.
We researched these rules for the LR9 Safari, a river and lake boat.
What the marks mean
Easy
The boat's own papers qualify it. This country accepts the CE certificate, the IMCI notified body file behind it and the builder's plate, and asks for no national survey of the boat before you start. What remains is yours as operator: registration, a skipper's ticket, insurance. Some of these countries then inspect the boat periodically, which is upkeep rather than a gate.
Moderate
An individual survey against a published national standard. Weeks to months, real documentation work, and occasionally a change to the layout.
30 of the 31 European countries here were read against an official source or the statute itself, current at 16 August 2026. Cyprus was not, and says so in its own row. The countries under Beyond Europe are market research and are not confirmed with their own authorities. Where only one passenger count is established (Bulgaria, Hungary, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta), the missing half says so too. None of this is legal advice and the final word is your own authority's, so do your own research beyond what is listed here — or ask us and we will confirm your country before you commit to anything.
