DG Shipping — vessel & company registry

note

Status: Fixture Mode — Endpoint, schema, auth, and SDKs are production-grade. Responses are deterministic samples drawn from real regulator publications. Activates to live within 5–15 business days of order — no integration changes required.

What it does

Directorate General of Shipping maintains India's flag-vessel registry, the Recruitment & Placement Services Licence (RPSL) registry for crew agencies, and Indian-port arrivals/departures. Our API normalizes these registries into a unified queryable surface — useful for EXIM ops, vessel-finance KYC, and seafarer-employment platforms.

Base URL

https://dg-shipping.sahayakonline.co.in/v1/

Endpoints

Method	Path	Description
GET	/health	Liveness probe
GET	/v1/dg-shipping/vessel/{imo}	Vessel by IMO number
GET	/v1/dg-shipping/rpsl/{licence_no}	RPSL crew-agency licence status
GET	/v1/dg-shipping/port/{port_code}/arrivals	Recent arrivals at an Indian port

Sample request

cURL

curl -sS https://dg-shipping.sahayakonline.co.in/v1/dg-shipping/vessel/IMO-9876543 \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $SAHAYAK_KEY" \
  -H "Accept: application/json"

Python

import os, requests
resp = requests.get(
    "https://dg-shipping.sahayakonline.co.in/v1/dg-shipping/vessel/IMO-9876543",
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['SAHAYAK_KEY']}", "Accept": "application/json"},
    timeout=10,
)
resp.raise_for_status()
print(resp.json())

Node.js

const fetch = (await import('node-fetch')).default;
const resp = await fetch('https://dg-shipping.sahayakonline.co.in/v1/dg-shipping/vessel/IMO-9876543', {
  headers: {
    'Authorization': `Bearer ${process.env.SAHAYAK_KEY}`,
    'Accept': 'application/json',
  },
});
console.log(await resp.json());

Sample response

{
  "spec_ref": "spec_dg_shipping_v1",
  "endpoint": "/v1/dg-shipping/vessel/IMO-9876543",
  "method": "GET",
  "results": [
    {
      "imo": "9876543",
      "name": "MV Sample Vessel",
      "flag": "IN",
      "type": "Bulk Carrier",
      "tonnage_dwt": 78500,
      "owner": "Sample Shipping Co Ltd",
      "registration_status": "active"
    }
  ],
  "meta": { "fixture_mode": true, "note": "Activates to live data within 5–15 business days of order." }
}

Error codes

Code	Meaning	Recommended action
400	Malformed request (missing required param, invalid format)	Fix request shape. Response body includes error.field pinpointing the issue.
401	Missing or invalid Authorization header	Verify key prefix matches your tier and that the header is Authorization: Bearer ….
403	Key valid but not entitled to this endpoint	Sandbox keys cannot call live-tier endpoints. Upgrade or request entitlement.
404	Resource not found	Check identifier format. Some endpoints return 200 with empty results[] instead of 404 — verify the endpoint convention.
429	Rate limit exceeded	Honor Retry-After header. Sandbox 30 r/m, Starter 300 r/m, Growth 1500 r/m.
503	Upstream regulator unreachable after retries	Live-tier only. Sahayak retries 3× with backoff before surfacing. Implement circuit-breaker on caller side.

Rate limits

Tier	Rate limit	Monthly cap
Sandbox	30 r/min	1,000 live calls (shared across 3 LIVE endpoints)
Starter	300 r/min	10,000 live calls
Growth	1,500 r/min	100,000 live calls
Scale	custom	500,000+

SLA reference

See Status & SLA for uptime targets, latency targets, and incident communication. Live activation triggers a real-time scrape of dgshipping.gov.in with refresh on every call.