Global Ship Repair Demand 2026: What the Ship Repair Index Shows
The TrustedDocks Ship Repair Index (SRI) measures worldwide drydock and repair activity from AIS-verified yard visits at a curated basket of 68 repair yards across nine regions. 2025 = 100. Updated weekly on the SRI dashboard.
The headline: 2026 is running below the 2025 baseline
Through week 30 of 2026, the global Ship Repair Index averaged 91 in the second quarter, against 102 in the same quarter of 2025 — repair activity roughly 10% below last year's pace. The latest finalized reading (week 30, late July) stands at 71, reflecting the usual northern-summer softening plus readings that typically revise upward as visit data matures. The most recent weeks are always published as provisional for exactly that reason.
Where the work is: the regional picture
The regional sub-indices tell a sharper story than the world number:
| Region | Index (2025 = 100) | Reading |
|---|---|---|
| China | 131 | Far busiest region — nearly a third above its 2025 baseline |
| North-West Europe | 80 | Resilient, close to baseline |
| Mediterranean & Black Sea | 74 | Steady mid-pack |
| Americas | 71 | Moderate softening |
| Africa | 71 | Moderate softening |
| Korea & Japan | 69 | Below baseline |
| South-East & South Asia | 59 | Notably slower than 2025 |
| Oceania | 47 | Small base, volatile |
| Middle East / Gulf | 39* | See data note below |
China stands alone. While every other region runs at or below its 2025 level, Chinese repair yards are absorbing significantly more tonnage than last year — consistent with the capacity build-out and price advantage that has been pulling routine drydockings east. Browse the country's yards in the China shipyard directory.
European yards are holding their ground. North-West Europe (80) and the Mediterranean (74) remain the strongest regions outside China — supported by emergency repairs, retrofit work and owners who keep sensitive tonnage close to home. See the Turkey and Netherlands hubs for the busiest clusters.
*A data note on the Gulf
The Middle East sub-index (39) should be read with caution: terrestrial AIS reception density in parts of the Gulf has declined materially since spring 2026, which suppresses AIS-verified visit detection at yards in the region independent of their actual workload. We publish the number for completeness, flag the limitation openly, and are treating regional AIS coverage as a data-engineering priority rather than letting one region's reception gap distort the world index — which weights all nine regions equally.
How the index works
- Numerator: distinct vessels ≥100 m with an AIS-verified stay of 48 hours or more at one of 68 curated repair yards, per ISO week.
- Denominator: the "detection-capable fleet" — vessels ≥100 m with at least 48 hours of AIS coverage that week — so the index is robust against swings in global AIS supply.
- Aggregation: nine regional sub-indices, equal-weighted into the world number; 4-week moving average; the latest weeks stay provisional until visit data matures.
The full weekly series, the regional breakdown and the yard-level activity map are on the Ship Repair Index page. To find repair capacity for a specific vessel type and region, start from the global shipyard directory.