FuelEU Maritime · Status update
FuelEU Maritime in Norway: delayed to at least 2028
FuelEU Maritime will not apply in Norway before 1 January 2028. Until the EEA incorporates it, Norwegian ports stay third-country and half the energy counts.
On 11 August 2026 the Norwegian Ministry of Climate and Environment stated that FuelEU Maritime will enter into force in Norway no earlier than 1 January 2028 Norwegian Maritime Authority . This is the second postponement, and it is not a change to the Regulation: Regulation (EU) 2023/1805 is in force across the Union on its own timetable, unamended. What has moved is the map. Until the Regulation is incorporated into the EEA Agreement and implemented in Norwegian law, Norwegian and Icelandic ports are third-country ports — and that changes how much of a voyage a company has to account for.
What the scope article actually does
Article 2(1) counts energy in three bands Reg (EU) 2023/1805 · Art. 2 . Energy used at berth in a port under the jurisdiction of a Member State counts in full, as does the entirety of the energy used on a voyage between two such ports. Where the previous or the next port of call is under the jurisdiction of a third country, one half of the energy counts. The Regulation applies to ships above 5 000 gross tonnage carrying passengers or cargo commercially, whatever their flag.
Read those bands against a Norwegian port and three cases fall out. A call at Rotterdam followed by Oslo is a voyage to a third-country port: one half. Oslo to Bergen touches no Member State port at all, so it is outside the scope of Article 2(1) and contributes nothing — neither energy nor the emissions of that energy. Time at berth in Oslo is likewise not time in a port under the jurisdiction of a Member State, so it does not carry the at-berth obligation.
What it does not change
Everything the Regulation asks of a company in respect of Member State ports is untouched: the GHG-intensity trajectory, the Annex II well-to-wake factors, the penalty formula, banking, borrowing and pooling all apply exactly as before. The well-to-wake pillar covers that machinery and none of it is affected here.
Nor does the delay touch EU MRV. A ship's monitoring and reporting obligations follow their own instrument and their own geographic scope; a company that reads "Norway is out" across its whole compliance stack will file the wrong emissions report. The MRV pillar is the page for that boundary.
What to do before the next reporting year
Check that voyage scoping treats Norwegian and Icelandic ports as third-country ports for FuelEU for the whole of 2026 and 2027 — and that it does so for FuelEU specifically, not by flipping a single country flag that other regimes also read. Any pooling or banking plan built on Norwegian in-scope energy needs rebuilding on the smaller base. And treat the date as a floor: the Ministry said no earlier than 1 January 2028, and the step that governs it is a decision of the EEA Joint Committee, not a date already in a Norwegian regulation.
Last reviewed · Carbonlogy Compliance Team
Calculators
Frequently asked questions
- Does the delay mean FuelEU Maritime does not apply to ships calling in Norway?
Not quite. It means Norwegian ports are treated as third-country ports. A voyage between a Norwegian port of call and a port of call under the jurisdiction of a Member State still counts, but only one half of its energy; a voyage that touches no Member State port — Oslo to Bergen, or Bergen to a non-EU port — falls outside the scope of the Regulation entirely.
- Is 1 January 2028 a fixed date?
No. The Norwegian Maritime Authority states entry into force no earlier than that date. Two steps must complete first: incorporation of the Regulation into the EEA Agreement, and its implementation in Norwegian law. A floor is not a schedule, and this is the second postponement.
- Does the delay reduce our FuelEU exposure?
Only if the fleet is in deficit. The compliance balance is the gap between the target and the attained intensity multiplied by the energy in scope, so removing in-scope energy shrinks a surplus exactly as it shrinks a deficit. An operator burning cleaner fuel on Norwegian trades banks less, and has less to pool.
- Does Iceland get the same treatment?
Yes. The notice covers Norwegian and Icelandic ports alike — both are EEA states awaiting the same incorporation step, and both are treated as third-country ports until it completes.
Sources cited
- [1]Norwegian Maritime Authority — FuelEU Maritime entry into force in Norway — Notice of 11 August 2026, relaying the Ministry of Climate and EnvironmentSjøfartsdirektoratet (Norwegian Maritime Authority)
- [2]Regulation (EU) 2023/1805 (FuelEU Maritime) — Article 2(1) — scope: ships above 5 000 GT; energy at berth and on voyages between two Member State ports of call counts in full, one half where the previous or next port of call is under the jurisdiction of a third countryEUR-Lex
- [3]Regulation (EU) 2023/1805 (FuelEU Maritime) — Annex IV Part A — compliance balance = (target − attained intensity) × in-scope energyEUR-Lex
All citations checked automatically · updated 2026-10-21