The compliance obligation sits with the shipping company that operates the vessel, never the forwarder or the shipper; the forwarder files nothing under FuelEU Maritime and meets it only as carrier surcharges on bookings touching EU and EEA ports, often bundled with emissions-trading costs in a single line item. The desk work it drives is quoting and margin protection: surcharge tariffs step up as the intensity targets tighten, vary by carrier and trade lane, and change at the turn of the year, so a quote that straddles a year boundary or omits the surcharge line eats the difference. It is not a fuel ban, a fuel mandate, a cap on total emissions, or a carbon tax; it regulates how carbon-intensive the energy a ship uses can be. The confusable is the EU Emissions Trading System's maritime extension, a separate instrument under which carriers surrender allowances for their emissions, so a bundled carrier emissions surcharge should never be attributed to either instrument alone.
Glossary
FuelEU Maritime
The European Union regulation that limits the greenhouse-gas intensity of the energy used on board ships, measured on a well-to-wake basis, applying to commercial ships above five thousand gross tonnage calling at EU ports regardless of flag.