The news: The FMC wants a $200,000 fee each time a Spanish-flagged ship arrives in the US from abroad, plus limits on five kinds of Spanish imports worth about $3.1 billion last year.
Implications:
Bookings: Any ship that unloads covered Spanish goods could be held at a US port, so your carrier may turn those bookings away.
Sourcing: Spanish olive oil, tile, cosmetics, stone and sweets are all on the list, and the FMC expects most of them to be replaced by similar goods from other countries.
Routing: Maersk’s US-flag fleet has swapped most of its Algeciras calls for Tangier since Spain turned its ships away.
The News
The Federal Maritime Commission is proposing a $200,000 fee each time a Spanish-flagged ship arrives in the US from abroad, along with limits on five kinds of Spanish imports: olive oil and other fats, perfume and cosmetics, ceramic tile, stone, and sugar and confectionery. The proposed rule says the FMC may limit all five categories or only some of them. Our first story described the fee and the limits as alternatives, but the rule proposes both.
The FMC says Spain created unfavorable conditions for US shipping by turning away three US-flagged Maersk ships in the Maritime Security Program, the fleet the government keeps on call for military sealift. Early reports said the ships were carrying cargo bound for or coming from Israel. Spain says it was following EU and international rules on defense goods, and it has said it will defend its interests and those of its companies alongside the European Commission and EU member states.
Why It Matters
The limits would be enforced against the ship, not the importer, so one container of Spanish tile could leave a whole vessel stuck at a US berth. That gives carriers a reason to stop taking bookings for covered Spanish goods well before the rule is final.
Zoom In
Under the draft, if any vessel, whatever its flag, carries or unloads covered Spanish goods, the FMC could ask Homeland Security to refuse to let the ship sail until the goods are back on board, or to deny it entry or detain it. The $200,000 fee is much narrower, because it applies only to Spanish-flagged ships and the FMC says relatively few of them call at US ports.
The FMC chose categories where the US buys heavily from Spain. Its 2025 import figures:
Oils and fats: $1.15 billion, including $836.9 million of olive oil
Perfume and cosmetics: nearly $940 million
Ceramics: $634.7 million, including $523.7 million of tile
Stone: $270.6 million
Sugar and confectionery: $138.8 million
Together that is about $3.1 billion, by our math. The FMC left off packaged medicines and power transformers, the only two narrow product lines that topped $1 billion in US imports from Spain in recent years, citing public health and the transformer shortage.
What It Costs
A Spanish-flagged ship, for example, that arrives in the US from abroad once a month would pay $2.4 million a year, by our math. For most shippers the bigger cost is a refused booking or a held ship, and the draft doesn't put a number on either.
Who’s Exposed
Importers of the five categories: grocery and foodservice buyers of Spanish olive oil, flooring and home-improvement buyers of Spanish tile and stone, and beauty brands that source perfume in Spain.
Everyone else on the ship: a vessel held over covered goods holds all the other cargo on board too.
Carriers on Spain-US services: their ship is the one that gets held, so they decide which bookings to take.
What’s Next
Dec. 14: comments close on docket FMC-2026-0463, and Spain can also ask for a hearing.
If Spain retaliates: once the FMC finds that US carriers or shippers were hit, the draft raises the fee and adds more categories of Spanish goods.
Dig Deeper
The rule: the FMC’s Federal Register notice, with the full list of goods and the terms for holding ships.
For importers: a law firm’s note on which contracts and products to review.
Our first take: FMC proposes a $200,000 fee on Spanish-flagged ships.
Thumbnail photo: Dclemens1971 / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0.
