Acquiring hydrographic data

The Hydrographic Service has up-to-date data sets at its disposal containing information that is processed into products. The Service offers these hydrographic data in various ways.

Requesting re-use of nautical charts or hydrographic publications

Nautical charts and hydrographic publications are protected by copyright. A licence must therefore be obtained for the re-use of these publications. In some cases, the licence is free of charge. You can apply for a licence using the form below.

The United Kingdom Hydrographic Office (UKHO) processes licences subject to a fee on behalf of the Hydrographic Service. You can also apply to the UKHO for licences for several other countries.

Re-use of hydrographic data is possible via web services and portals. The Hydrographic Service offers these data for instance at the Open Data Viewer as a partner of the Marine Information and data Centre. Further information about web services and portals is contained in the memo Online availability of data from the Hydrographic Service.

Downloading data via this website

Nowadays, a lot of geographic source data are available online free of charge. The following datasets are available for download from this site:

Applying other data

Is the data you are looking for unavailable? Or is the online service insufficient for your needs? If that is the case, you can submit an application for hydrographic data using the Application form for hydrographic data.