Resources / Guide
Spot a forged or recycled seafarer certificate
By the Docka team · Reviewed 7 September 2026
Last updated:
You cannot spot a good forgery by looking at it; you spot it by asking the register that should hold it. A forged Certificate of Competency or STCW endorsement can carry the right stamp, the right layout, a plausible signature, even a QR code, and pass a careful human eye without raising a flag. The document looks correct because it was made to look correct. Reading it harder does not help.
There are two problems hiding inside one word. A forged certificate is one that was never issued by the authority whose name is on it. A recycled certificate is trickier: it is a real certificate number that exists in a register, reused on a document that belongs to a different person. One is an invention. The other is a theft. Both survive a visual review, and both fail the same test.
Why your eyes are the wrong tool
Every signal a person uses to judge a certificate (the stamp, the paper, the font, the hologram, the QR code) is a property of the copy in front of you. A forger controls all of them. That is why "it looked fine" is not a verification method; it is a second opinion on a photo.
The one thing a forger cannot control is the issuing authority's own register. A forged certificate was never entered there, so a check against the register comes back with nothing to match. The forgery does not fail because it looks wrong. It fails because the original it claims to copy does not exist.
The recycled certificate: a real number on the wrong person
Recycling is the case that catches people out, because there is a genuine record behind it. Someone takes a certificate number that really was issued, often lifted from a real seafarer's document, and prints it onto a credential for somebody else. Check that number against the register and it may well come back valid. The number is real. The pairing is not.
This is where cross-referencing across many seafarers matters. Docka flags when the same certificate number turns up attached to more than one person: a cross-seafarer duplicate certificate-number check. A single lookup can be fooled by a recycled number. A system that has seen that number before, on someone else, is not. The duplicate is the tell.
A worked example: the same number twice
An agency holds forty Norwegian deck officers. A new applicant sends a scanned certificate of competency, and the desk runs the usual check: certificate number and date of birth go to the Norwegian Maritime Authority's verification service at official portal (verify.certificate.sdir.no), the answer comes back and is stored with a timestamp. So far this is the standard flag-state check, and on its own it says nothing about recycling, because the register is asked about a number, not about a person.
The second step is the one that matters here. Docka compares the new certificate number with every certificate number already on file across the agency's seafarers. If the same number already sits on another person's profile, both documents are flagged for the desk to look at. Nobody is accused at this point; two people cannot both hold the same certificate, so one of the two documents needs the administration's attention. The process ends with a question for the issuing authority, not with a verdict from Docka.
The only reliable check: go back to the register
The term for doing this properly is primary-source verification, spelled out, because the bare initials PSV also mean "platform supply vessel" in shipping and the collision causes real confusion. Primary-source verification means you do not trust the copy. You go back to the maritime authority that issued the certificate, the primary source, and ask its own register whether the document is really there.
For some flag states this happens live, in seconds. Docka runs live automatic checks against eight flag-state registers: Estonia, Denmark, Cyprus, the United Kingdom, Norway, France, Ukraine's state register, and Azerbaijan.
Bulgaria is different again: the automatic check only confirms that a document issued in 2017 or later exists in the official register, a presence check and never a validity verdict. Everywhere else the check is assisted; Docka opens the correct official portal, pre-fills what it can, and a person completes it.
The eight are not equally deep, and a forgery check has to know that. Cyprus is a live connection to the ministry's own form, so read a confirmation as the form's answer rather than a verdict Docka is vouching for. Ukraine's state register reliably covers documents issued from 2023; a not-found on an older document is a question for the administration, not a forgery finding.
A forger can print any number, so the check is only as good as the register you send it to. Every register Docka queries automatically, the fields each one keys the lookup on and the authority's own portal are tabulated in how seafarer certificate verification actually works; the registry coverage page sorts all of them by tier. The live registers have pages of their own: Estonia, Denmark, Cyprus, United Kingdom, Norway, France, Ukraine (state registry), Azerbaijan.
One warning that belongs next to any portal link: some websites imitate real maritime authorities and will happily "confirm" anything you type. Use the portal linked from the register's own page, or the administration's own domain, never a search result. Docka only talks to each authority's pinned official domain and shows a warning for the impostor domains it knows about.
Reading the result honestly
A register check that reaches the issuing authority is worth more than one that does not, so the result has to say which kind it was. Every document in Docka carries one of four levels, L0 Self-uploaded, not yet verified at the bottom and L3 Government-verified at the top; how seafarer certificate verification actually works defines each one.
The gap between L2 and L3 is exactly where a recycled certificate lives. "This number exists" is L2. "This authority confirms this document for this holder" is L3. A forgery cannot reach L2, because the record was never there. A recycled number can reach L2 on its own, which is why the duplicate check matters, and why the level label refuses to round a maybe up to a yes.
What the Convention says about it
Certificate fraud is not a new worry. The IMO's page on the STCW Convention records that the 2010 Manila amendments introduced "improved measures to prevent fraudulent practices associated with certificates of competency", for a treaty that has been in force since 28 April 1984. The measures work through the administrations: each one keeps the register of what it has issued, and that register is what a port state inspector, a flag state or a crewing agency asks when a certificate is in doubt.
Docka does not judge whether a document is fraudulent. It puts the question to the register that can answer it and records the answer at the level the check reached. The judgement, if one is needed, belongs to the administration that issued the certificate.
What this means for a crewing desk
Neither the forgery nor the recycled number survives two checks run together: the certificate against the register that issued it, and the number against every other seafarer you hold. The forged document has no original to match. The recycled one matches an original that belongs to someone else.
Run both, record both, and the desk has an answer it can show an inspector: this number, this register, this time, this level, and no second holder on file.
A few habits make the routine harder to game. Ask for the certificate as a scan of the original, not a photograph of a photocopy, because a recycled number is usually pasted onto a low-resolution image where the edit hides. Compare the holder's name and birth date on the certificate with the passport before you send anything to a register, since a mismatch there is cheaper to catch than a mismatch in the ministry's reply. Log who ran each lookup and when, so an auditor can retrace the decision months later. And when a duplicate does surface, suspend the placement quietly and write to the administration; an accusation at the gangway helps nobody, and the register will settle it.
Frequently asked questions
- How can you tell if a seafarer certificate is fake?
- You generally cannot tell by inspecting it. A forged certificate can carry the correct stamp, layout and even a QR code and still pass a human eye. The reliable test is primary-source verification: checking the certificate number against the issuing maritime authority's own register, where a forgery has no matching record.
- What is a recycled seafarer certificate?
- It is a real, genuinely issued certificate number reused on a document that belongs to a different person. Because the number is real, a single register lookup can pass it. It is caught by cross-referencing the same number across seafarers, so a duplicate certificate-number check flags when one number is attached to more than one holder.
- How do I verify a seafarer certificate of competency (CoC)?
- Check it against the flag state's official register, not against the PDF. Docka runs live automatic checks against eight flag-state registers (Estonia, Denmark, Cyprus, the United Kingdom, Norway, France, Ukraine's state register and Azerbaijan) and takes you to the official portal for countries where the check must be completed by a person.
- Can you verify a Ukrainian seafarer's CoC?
- Yes. Docka runs a live automatic check against Ukraine's state maritime register. Coverage is reliable for documents issued 2023 and later; a not-found result on an older document is inconclusive, not a definite fail.
- Can you verify an Azerbaijani seafarer certificate?
- Yes. Azerbaijan, through the State Maritime and Port Agency, is one of the eight flag-state registers Docka checks live and automatically.
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