What does an ENG1 medical cost, by country, in 2026?

The ENG1 is the cheapest certificate you will buy and the only one that can stop the whole plan. An hour in a clinic, a fraction of what a course costs, and a yes or a no that everything else depends on. Crew still book it last. Here is what it costs in 2026, where, and why the order matters.

Definition

the ENG1 is the seafarer medical certificate. An approved doctor checks that you are fit to work at sea: eyesight, colour vision, hearing, blood pressure, general physical, and usually a urine sample. Every commercial vessel asks for it before you sign anything.

What does an ENG1 cost where you would take it?

Figures below were seen on 18 August 2026 and they are examination fees, not the total you hand over.

Two lessons sit in that table. First, the UK is the only place with a fee set by rule rather than by the clinic, which is why it is the number everyone quotes and why it is not the number most crew pay. Second, the spread between countries is small in absolute money. A hundred euros here or there should never decide where you sit the exam. Availability should.

From the bridge

I have never once cared where a candidate's ENG1 was issued. I care that the date on it outlasts my season.

How long does it last, and who can sign it?

Two years from issue. One year only if you are aged 16 to 18. Diary the expiry the day you get it, because an ENG1 that lapses in July takes you off the crew list until it is replaced, and July is the worst month in the calendar to be looking for a clinic appointment in the Med.

Your family doctor cannot issue it, whatever they tell you. It must be an MCA approved doctor. That does not mean a flight to Britain: the MCA keeps country by country lists of approved doctors outside the UK, France, the USA, South Africa and Spain among them, and any of those doctors issues the same certificate that a doctor in Southampton does.

That single fact saves South African crew real money. Sit the medical at home for about R2,800, then arrive in Antibes or Palma with a valid certificate already in your folio rather than losing a week of hiring season to a clinic waiting list. Book it while you are still comparing course prices, not after.

Colour vision, and the department it decides

Colour vision is tested with Ishihara plates. It is the part of the exam that quietly decides your department.

If you want deck and you fail the plates, you are not finished. Deck ratings and officers who fail may retest at an MCA nominated CAD centre. But a confirmed fail can restrict or bar lookout and deck duties, in some cases permanently. Interior, galley and engineering stay open to you, and I have hired good crew in all three who found out this way.

The point is timing. Finding out in a clinic costs you an examination fee. Finding out after you have paid for a course, a flight and six weeks in a crew house costs you a season. If there is any history of colour vision trouble in your family, say so at the booking and ask the clinic what the retest route is before you sit.

Why book the medical before you pay for a course

Run the numbers in the order they cost you. In August 2026 an ENG1 is GBP 115 in the UK or roughly R2,800 in Cape Town. The Basic Safety Training course behind it is R6,500 to R15,000 in Cape Town, USD 1,095 to 1,375 in Fort Lauderdale, EUR 1,295 in Antibes or Palma and GBP 850 to 1,050 in the UK, per the STCW cost breakdown for 2026.

So the medical is somewhere between a tenth and a fifth of the course. It is also the only one of the two that can return a hard no. Schools do not refund a course because a body did not pass a medical, and no insurer covers you for changing your mind. Book the cheap test first and let it decide whether you spend the rest.

There is one more reason, and it is about how you look on the dock. A CV listing six certificates and no ENG1 date reads as someone who bought what a school sold them. A CV with the medical, its date and the two year expiry at the top reads as someone who has done this before. The order you buy things in shows.

From the bridge

the fastest no I give is to a CV with an expired medical and a brand new course certificate. It tells me who is advising that person, and it is not somebody who hires.