A Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI) is an assigned Unique identifier (UID), comparable to a maritime object's international maritime telephone number, issued by that object's current flag state (unlike an IMO number, which is a permanent global UID). When the vessel changes ownership or name within the same country of registration then the assigned MMSI remains with the vessel. If the ship is reflagged then the different country’s (flag state) MMSI must be assigned. An MMSI comprises a series of nine digits, consisting of three Maritime Identification Digits (country-codes), concatenated with a specific identifier. Whenever an object is re-flagged, a new MMSI must be assigned that corresponds with the new state's identity. A "maritime object" could be anything that requests an MMSI identifier.—e.g., a vessel, fixed offshore installation, mobile unit, maritime aircraft, coast station, etc. Communications may be routed to "individual objects" or to "groups of objects". A group call to objects can be based on an object's locale, owner/operator/fleet, type, etc. or combinations thereof. MMSI's are formed in such a way that the identity or part thereof can be used by telephone and telex subscribers connected to the general telecommunications network to call any of these objects automatically. Communications are sent in digital form over a radio frequency channel.
Types As of 2024, there are six kinds of maritime mobile service identities:
Ship station identities Group ship station identities Coast station identities Group coast station identities SAR aircraft Navigational aids, and craft associated with a parent ship
Maritime identification digits (MID)
An MID consists of three digits, always starting with a number from 2 to 7 (assigned regionally by continent) that indicates the specific flag state / country in which the station is registered. A second MID can be assigned once the first or subsequently allocated MID is more than 80% exhausted, and the rate of assignments is such that 90% exhaustion is foreseen. A listing of MIDs assigned to each country can be found in Table 1 of ITU Radio Regulations Appendix 43.
The first digit of an MMSI The initial digits of an MMSI categorize the identity, as defined in by Recommendation M.585. The meaning of the first digit is:
0 Ship group, coast station, or group of coast stations 1 For use by SAR aircraft (111MIDaxx) 2-7 MMSI's used by individual ships, beginning with an MID: 2 Europe (e.g., Italy has MID 247; Denmark has MIDs 219 and 220) 3 North and Central America and Caribbean (e.g., Canada, 316; Greenland, 331; Panama, 351 through 357, plus 370 through 373; United States, 303(Alaska), 338(domestic), plus 366 through 369) 4 Asia (not the southeast) (e.g., PRC, 412, 413, and 414; Maldives, 455; Japan, 431) 5 Oceania (Australia, 503; New Zealand, 512), and Southeast Asia (Philippines, 548; Indonesia, 525) 6 Africa (Eritrea, 625) 7 South America (Peru, 760) 8 Handheld VHF transceiver with DSC and GNSS 9 Devices using a free-form number identity: Search and Rescue Transponders (970yyzzzz) Man overboard DSC and/or AIS devices (972yyzzzz) 406 MHz EPIRBs fitted with an AIS transmitter (974yyzzzz) craft associated with a parent ship (98MIDxxxx) navigational aids (AtoNs; 99MIDaxxx) Notes
Station Identity Formats
Ship station identities The 9-digit code constituting a ship station identity is formed as follows:
MIDxxxxxx where MID represent the Maritime Identification Digits and X is any figure from 0 to 9. If the ship is fitted with an Inmarsat B, C or M ship earth station, or it is expected to be so equipped in the foreseeable future, then the identity should have three trailing zeros:
MIDxxx000 If the ship is fitted with an Inmarsat C ship earth station, or it is expected to be so equipped in the foreseeable future, then the identity could have one trailing zero:
MIDxxxxx0 If the ship is fitted with an Inmarsat A ship earth station, or has satellite equipment other than Inmarsat, then the identity needs no trailing zero.
Group ship station call identities Group ship station call identities for calling simultaneously more than one ship are formed as follows:
0MIDxxxxx where the first figure is zero, and X is any figure from 0 to 9. The particular MID represents only the country assigning the group ship station call identity and so does not prevent group calls to fleets containing more than one ship nationality.
Coast station identities Coast station identities are formed as follows:
00MIDxxxx where the first two figures are zeros, and X is any figure from 0 to 9. The MID reflects the country in which the coast station or coast earth station is located.
Group coast station call identities Group coast station call identities for calling simultaneously more than one coast station have the same format as individual coast station IDs: two leading zeros, the MID, and the four digits. They are formed as a subset of coast station identities, as follows:
00MID0000 for any coast station using the MID 009990000 for any VHF coast station (regardless of MID) US Coast Guard stations use a non-standard MMSI: 003669999 - any US Coast Guard Base station Note that administrations in other countries may use different formats. Reference: ITU-R Recommendations M.585-7
Search and Rescue Transmitter AIS Search and Rescue Transmitters (AIS-SART) have an identifier related to the manufacturer, rather than a country's MID:
970YYxxxx The digitals represented by the two Y characters are assigned by the International Association for Marine Electronics Companies and refer to the SART manufacturer, while the Xs are sequential digits assigned by the manufacturer identifying the SART.
Federal US MMSIs In the United States (one of whose MIDs is 366), federal MMSIs are assigned by the National Telecommunications and Information Administration and are normally (but not always) formed as 3669xxxxx. Non-federal MMSIs are assigned by the Federal Communications Commission normally as part of the ship station license application and are formed as 366xxx000 for ships on international voyages and ships needing an Inmarsat mobile earth station, or 366xxxxx0 for all other ships. The United States Coast Guard group ship station call identity is 036699999, and the group coast station call identity is 003669999. In the U.S., MMSIs are primarily used for digital selective calling and for assigning Inmarsat identities.
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