From 1 April 2026, ships calling at UK ports will see modest changes to light dues and how some charges are calculated. The Department for Transport has signed off a corrective Statutory Instrument to fix an error in last year’s rules and to confirm the per‑voyage rates for 2026 and 2027. The instrument was made on 4 March 2026, laid before Parliament on 9 March 2026, and is issued free of charge to recipients of SI 2025/278, according to legislation.gov.uk.

In pounds and pence, the per‑voyage light due moves to 46 pence per ton from 1 April 2026, with a minimum charge of £60 and a cap of £23,000 per call. A further step to 47 pence per ton applies from 1 April 2027, with the cap nudged to £23,500. The minimum charge is unchanged.

Those caps matter. At 46p, the per‑voyage ceiling bites at 50,000 tons, so very large ships will pay the same £23,000 per call. At 47p in 2027, the bite point remains 50,000 tons with a £23,500 limit. By contrast, a 20,000‑ton ship would pay about £9,200 per voyage in 2026 and £9,400 in 2027, subject to the tonnage definition in the regulations.

The £60 minimum also frames the small‑end economics. At 46p per ton, the minimum is broadly equivalent to around 130 tons; at 47p, roughly 128 tons. Smaller commercial vessels will therefore continue to trigger the flat minimum on arrival.

Season‑ticket style arrangements are also tweaked. The rules for periodical payments now reference a vessel’s ‘registered length’ rather than ‘load line length’. That change aligns the length used for charging with the figure that appears on the ship’s registry documents and should ease administration for owners and agents.

For clarity, ‘registered length’ is defined in the instrument as the length recorded on a UK certificate of registry, the equivalent on a foreign registry, or-if a vessel is unregistered-the length that would be recorded if it were. Rounding to the nearest metre is also clarified by switching wording from ‘less than’ to ‘not exceeding’.

Exemptions are lightly tidied. Schedule 1 now refers to registered length where relevant, and one category is simplified to cover vessels arriving solely for “moderation, alteration or scrapping”. In practical terms, the focus is on excluding ships not engaged in normal commercial activity from the dues net.

For operators, the maths is straightforward but worth planning. Most carriers pass statutory port and navigational dues through to customers. The 2026 step‑up will add a small increment to voyage costs that may surface in freight rates or ferry ticket pricing, although the per‑call cap limits exposure for the largest tonnage.

Finance teams should adjust voyage estimates and budgets dated from 1 April 2026, model the 2027 step‑up early, and double‑check that registry documents show the correct registered length. Agents and port accounts teams will also want to refresh tariff cards and invoicing templates so the minimums and caps reflect the new figures.

Formally titled the Merchant Shipping (Light Dues) (Amendment) Regulations 2026 (SI 2026/234), the measure is signed by Keir Mather, Parliamentary Under‑Secretary of State at the Department for Transport, on 4 March 2026. The accompanying note on legislation.gov.uk states no significant impact is expected, which tallies with the modest size of the per‑ton changes.