The UK’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) is looking to change the way it charges for services in a bid to fully recoup its costs.
Proposals to revamp its fees for ship registrations and surveys are being put out for consultation, it said.
It admitted most prices, including ship surveys and examinations, would go up, but others will decrease.
Views can be submitted up until 26 October.
"Recovering realistic costs of providing services which fall to the MCA as regulator will help to provide a stronger financial basis for future improvements,” it said.
The agency added that costs had been rising for the past ten years, while its fees had stayed the same.
Its guidance from the government is that it should not make a profit at the expense of customers, but can also not run at a loss.
As a result, it has carried out an “extensive study” to look at the actual costs of carrying out surveys and exams to provide the proposed new fees.
It is suggesting two options, the first of which is to maintain the status quo.
The second is to increase fees for marine surveys, as well as the registration, transfer and mortgage of fishing vessels and seafarer training and certification (STC) exams, in line with costs.
Any hike in prices would come at a time when the MCA is looking for a new head of the UK Ship Register to replace Simon Barham, who resigned in August.
He had been tasked with boosting the size of the flag, but a more expensive service could place an additional obstacle in the way of a new permanent boss.
Barham had set a target of doubling the size of the fleet in the next five years.
Clarkson’s World Fleet Monitor ranks the UK as the 13th-largest flag state in the world with 1,152 ships amounting to 14.4 million gt.
During Barham’s time at the MCA the flag grew by 2.3%.
The UK register was named as the best performing flag in terms of limiting detentions and deficiencies in the Paris MOU port-state-control annual report.
