IACS 2025 Annual Review Highlights Safety Role of Class
The International Association of Classification Societies (IACS) has released its 2025 Annual Review which showcases the central role played by IACS and its members in supporting safety standards and driving technical innovation in the maritime industry.
The report identifies many areas of progress, including IACS’s ongoing role in supporting decarbonisation objectives. Through its Safe Decarbonisation Panel, IACS is supporting progress in alternative fuels, whilst remaining neutral on any preferred option. This includes the development of Resolutions on the safe use of alternative fuels which underpin IMO regulations or the classification rules of each IACS Member.
Through the Safe Digital Transformation Panel, IACS has identified and focused work on several priorities, including data quality, cybersecurity and predictive maintenance. IACS has developed Unified Requirements on cyber resilience of new ships and Recommendations for existing vessels, establishing a minimum set of cybersecurity controls as part of safety management systems.
IACS has also contributed to the application of digital technologies in other areas of classification activity, such as the use of 3D models for the technical review of hull design, structural strength and integrity.
The report also discusses IACS’s extensive and ongoing program of engagement with wider industry - including intergovernmental bodies, industry associations, and international standards bodies, with flag States and port State Authorities around the world, and with the IMO. In 2025, IACS and its Members authored 37 independent submissions to IMO, plus a further 20 co-sponsored papers.
2025 saw progress on surveyor safety led by the work of IACS’s Expert Group on Safety of Surveyors (EG SoS). This included new Recommendations on safety standards at work for surveyors and confined space safe practice. Together, these measures deliver a consolidated approach to surveyor safety that aligns IACS with ISO 45001 principles, IMO instruments and industry best practices, and that advance a culture of safety through all classification activities.
The Review explores many other areas of technical and safety progress where IACS has made a significant contribution. These include the development of the goal-based IMO Maritime Autonomous Surface Ship (MASS) Code, and the multi-year programme to modernise the IACS Common Structural Rules (CSR). The Review also highlights the work of IACS to address fires in ship machinery spaces by reinforcing fire safety standards, the publication of updated welding high heat input welding requirements for marine and offshore structures.
In 2025, IACS published 78 new or revised Unified Requirements, Procedural Requirements, Unified Interpretations, and Recommendations for implementation by its Members, and the Annual Review provides a full list of these, as well as those which have been withdrawn. It also includes the ‘Class Report 2025’, which contains data on the global IACS fleet, broken down by the 12 IACS Members.
