Live AIS · AISStream · Digitraffic / Fintraffic, CC BY 4.0
Follow the ships
the coast can hear.
Explore live AIS positions from a worldwide network of shore receivers. Every dot names its source and age. Coverage is coastal and uneven by design: when the signal ends at the VHF horizon, we say so plainly.
Find a vessel
Loading positions…
Contacting the live feed…
Live AIS preview
Load the interactive plot when you want to see current positions.
Use + and − to zoom · drag to explore
Live feed unavailable.
This is a feed outage, not an empty sea. Vessels are almost certainly moving; we just cannot see them right now. The vessel index still works from our own store.
Positions: AISStream.io, falling back to Digitraffic / Fintraffic, CC BY 4.0 · Basemap © OpenStreetMap contributors, tiles by OpenFreeMap
Artwork: MarineActivity / Original artwork ·source · Commissioned original
Start here
What are you looking for?
Three useful ways into the data
Identify a vesselSearch by name, MMSI, IMO number or call sign.Search the vessel index Explore the live mapSee what shore-based receivers are hearing, with age and source on every position.Open the map Understand AISLearn what the signal means, where coverage ends and why a vessel may disappear.Read the primer
Feed status
What we are holding right now
Read live from /api/status in your browser. If it says unavailable, our store is unreachable — it does not mean the sea is empty.
Vessels in store
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Distinct MMSIs we hold a static report for
Positions held
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Latest known position per vessel
Newest position
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Age of the freshest report in the store
Feed
Checking…
AISStream, fallback Digitraffic / Fintraffic (CC BY 4.0)
Fleet dashboard
What our receivers can hear right now
Vessels heard now
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In our current AIS snapshot, not a count of ships at sea
Under way
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Reporting 0.5 kn or more
Flag states
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Distinct registries among the top 25 we can read
Freshest fix
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Age of the newest position we hold
By ship-type category
Loading…Reading the live snapshot…
“Unknown” is normally the largest bar: ship type arrives in a separate AIS transmission sent only every few minutes, so a vessel that has just come into range has a position but no type yet. We show it at full size rather than dropping it.
Browse by category
Ship types
AIS carries a two-digit ship-and-cargo type set by the crew. We group the 99 codes into these categories, and every page states exactly which raw codes it covers.
- CargoDry bulk, container, general cargo and ro-ro ships.
- TankerCrude, product, chemical and gas carriers.
- PassengerFerries, cruise ships and passenger craft.
- FishingVessels reporting as engaged in fishing.
- Tug & towTugs, pushers and vessels engaged in towing.
- Pleasure craftPrivate recreational vessels.
- SailingVessels under sail.
- High-speed craftHSC and wing-in-ground craft.
- ServicePilot, SAR, port tender, dredging, law enforcement and similar.
- MilitaryVessels reporting a military or law-enforcement type.
- OtherTypes defined by the standard but outside the categories above.
- UnknownNo usable ship type reported.
Reference
What the data actually means
How AIS actually works
Every dot on a live map is a ship voluntarily broadcasting its own position over VHF radio, and a receiver close enough to hear it.
Why AIS coverage is uneven — and what it means when a ship disappears from the map
Coverage follows the receiver network, not the ocean. A missing ship is almost always a missing receiver.
Reading an MMSI: what the nine digits mean
The first three digits of a ship's MMSI are its flag state — but only when the identity is a ship station in the first place.
Flag statesWhat an MMSI's first three digits say about where a ship is registered.Port activityVessels heard around 120 ports, sampled daily and ranked by 7-day average. Open data.Vessel indexEvery vessel our store has heard, searchable by name, MMSI, IMO or call sign.SourcesWhich feed each position came from, under which licence.
Selected equipment
From map signal to working installation
Real, named products chosen for the roles explained across this site. We show the specification fit and the caveat, then send you to Amazon for current price and availability.
em-trak
Transmit + receive · 5 W SOTDMA
B951 AIS transceiver
A compact Class B unit with 5 W SOTDMA, internal GPS, NMEA 0183 and NMEA 2000.
Check price & availability for em-trak B951 Class B AIS transceiver on AmazonQuark-elec
Receive only · dual channel
QK-A026 AIS receiver
A dual-channel AIS receiver with GPS and USB, Wi-Fi and NMEA 0183 output.
Check price & availability for Quark-elec QK-A026 wireless AIS + GPS receiver on AmazonGarmin
7-inch multifunction display
GPSMAP 743xsv
A networked chartplotter that can place AIS targets alongside chart, sonar and radar data.
Check price & availability for Garmin GPSMAP 743xsv chartplotter on Amazon
As an Amazon Associate, MarineActivity earns from qualifying purchases. Amazon is the seller; we do not set prices, hold stock or fulfil orders. Prices and availability can change.
See all field notes and equipmentCoverage
What this site does not do
We run on terrestrial AIS only. That is VHF radio, and VHF stops at the horizon — roughly 20 to 40 nautical miles from a receiver. Our feeds are global in reach but only as good as that receiver network: dense around Europe, North America and East Asia, thin elsewhere, and effectively absent in mid-ocean. Outside the band a receiver covers we show nothing, because we know nothing.
We have no satellite AIS, no radar and no imagery. We cannot see vessels without a transponder, vessels with theirs switched off, or most small craft — and some feeds, Digitraffic among them, filter fishing vessels out at source. A ship missing from this map has very probably just sailed out of range, not gone dark.