One in Ten Container Inspections Found Deficiencies in 2025
Seven states filed results out of more than 170 IMO members, and the failure rate keeps climbing
Deficiencies were found in 9,645 of the 93,079 container inspections carried out in 2025 and reported to the International Maritime Organization, a rate of 10.36 percent. The consolidated figures were published by the World Shipping Council, which took the series over after the IMO discontinued its own annual report in 2024.
The faults are the ordinary ones, which is what makes them expensive: incorrect documentation, wrong marking and labelling, improper packing, and inadequate cargo securing. Each of those raises the odds of cargo damage, containers going over the side, and fire in the hold. Allianz puts the frequency of containership fires at one every 17 days.
"Finding deficiencies in more than one in ten inspected units is far too high," said Joe Kramek, President and CEO of the World Shipping Council.
The trend is the more useful number. Between 2017 and 2025 the average deficiency rate ran above 9 percent. Over the past three years it has risen to a 10.9 percent average, with 2024 above 11 percent. On a decade view the inspection regime is catching more faults, not fewer.
What the series does not cover is most of the world. The 2025 figures come from Chile, Finland, Germany, the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Republic of Korea, Sweden and the United States — seven states out of the IMO's more than 170 members. Everything else in the trade is unmeasured. "States have a responsibility to enforce cargo safety rules, including through effective inspections," Kramek said.
The Council also flagged undeclared lithium batteries moving in containers in volume. Global lithium-ion battery deployment in 2025 was six times higher than in 2020, and demand is expected to double again by 2030, against a dangerous goods regime that was not written for that load.
The consequences are not theoretical this month. General average has just been declared on the CMA CGM Petra after a cargo-hold fire in the Strait of Malacca on 23 August, with around 450 containers due to be discharged at Port Klang for inspection and a fire expert appointed to establish the cause. That is one ship's worth of the same question the inspection data asks across the fleet: what was actually in the box, and who checked.
The underlying submission is published as the consolidated results of container inspection programmes.
This story is part of the Maritime Briefing of 17 September 2026.
