A public reference property of Baalvion

Open data · every figure carries its source

World Shipping DirectoryCompanies · Ships · Fleets

A public reference property of Baalvion

Open data · every figure carries its source

World Shipping DirectoryCompanies · Ships · Fleets

shipping line

DFDS

Headquarters: Copenhagen
Founded: 1866
Employees: 14,121

Official website

Photo: Leif Jørgensen · CC BY-SA 4.0 · file

Ships in this registry

Counted from individual vessel records · Wikidata

Reported fleet size

—

No published figure available

Container capacity

—

Not a ranked container line

Gross tonnage on record

177,428

Summed over 7 ships reporting tonnage

In brief

What DFDS is

Full article ↗

DFDS is a Danish international shipping and logistics company. The company's name is an abbreviation of Det Forenede Dampskibs-Selskab (literally The United Steamship Company). DFDS was founded in 1866, when C.F. Tietgen merged the three biggest Danish steamship companies of that day.
Although DFDS has generally concentrated on freight and passenger traffic on the North Sea and to the Baltic Sea, it has also operated freight services to the US, South America, and the Mediterranean in the past. Since the 1980s, DFDS's focus for shipping has been on northern Europe. Today, DFDS operates a network of 25 routes with 50 freight and passenger ships in the North Sea, Baltic Sea, and the English Channel under the name DFDS Seaways. The rail and land-based haulage and container activities are operated by DFDS Logistics. Overall, DFDS employed around 14,000 people as of 2024.

Origin

Who founded it

DFDS was founded in 1866 by one named founder on record. Portraits are shown only where a freely licensed photograph exists and its photographer is known.

Founder

Carl Frederik Tietgen

1829–1901

Danish businessman (1829–1901)

Photo: unknown for the image · Public domain · file

Corporate profile

Identity and registration

Legal name: —
Industry: shipping line
Legal form: aktieselskab
Country of registration: Denmark
Headquarters: Copenhagen
Formed in: —
Founded: 1866
Dissolved: —
Employees: 14,121
Listed on: Nasdaq Copenhagen A/S
Ticker: —
ISIN: DK0060655629
Legal Entity Identifier: 549300JZVW1Y1UZ5UK38
Head office coordinates: 55.6761, 12.5689

Ships on record here: 7
Vessel types operated: 4
Flag states used: 4
Average vessel age: 29.9 years
Oldest vessel on record: 1967
Newest vessel on record: 2006
Largest vessel by tonnage: 35,923
Average tonnage: 25,347
Market share: —
Parent company: —
Alliance: —
Record source: wikidata

Reported financials

Financial year 2024

All figures in SEK

Published company figures for a single reported year, shown together so they are comparable. Figures from other years are not mixed in — a page that pairs one year's revenue with another's assets misreports both.

Revenue

29.8bn SEK

Reported for 2024

Fleet on record

What this company sails

Composition of the 7 vessels this registry attributes to DFDS. Bars are true proportions of that set, not of the company's full fleet.

By vessel type

By flag state

By shipbuilder

Samsung Heavy Industries3

ABG Shipyard1

Brodosplit1

Cantiere Navale Visentini, Porto Viro1

Cantieri Navali del Tirreno Riuniti1

Delivery history

10-year fleet record

Ships delivered in each of the last 10 years, counted from the recorded build year of vessels attributed to this company, with the running total of its fleet on record. No deliveries fall inside this window — this company’s vessels on record were all built earlier.

Year	Gross tonnage added	Fleet on record
2017	—	7
2018	—	7
2019	—	7
2020	—	7
2021	—	7
2022	—	7
2023	—	7
2024	—	7
2025	—	7
2026	—	7

Vessel records

Ships on record

7 vessels

Ship	IMO	Type	Flag	Built	Gross tonnage	Deadweight	Length	Builder
MS Dover Seaways	9318345	Ro-Ro	United Kingdom	2006	35,923	6,787	186.0 m	Samsung Heavy Industries
MS Dunkerque Seaways	9293076	Ferry	United Kingdom	2005	35,923	6,787	186.0 m	Samsung Heavy Industries
MS Nordic Crown	8917613	Ferry	Denmark	1994	35,498	—	171.0 m	Brodosplit
MS Delft Seaways	9293088	Ro-Ro	United Kingdom	2006	35,293	—	186.0 m	Samsung Heavy Industries
MV Ark Futura	9129598	Unclassified	Denmark	1996	18,725	13,500	183.1 m	Cantiere Navale Visentini, Porto Viro
MS Winston Churchill	6718233	Ferry	North Korea	1967	8,657	—	140.7 m	Cantieri Navali del Tirreno Riuniti
Lysbris Seaways	9144263	Multi-purpose	Norway	1999	7,409	7,500	129.0 m	ABG Shipyard

Ships in registry counts individual vessel records attributed to the company here. Reported fleet is the company’s published total. They measure different things and are shown separately on purpose.

In context

How DFDS compares

Counts over companies and vessels actually held in this directory — not over the world fleet, which is larger. Nothing here is estimated.

With 7 vessels attributed to it here, DFDS is the 123rd largest of the 965 operators in this directory that hold at least one ship on record, against a median of 2 across that group. That is a count of individually identified hulls, not the company’s published fleet size — the two are different measurements and both are shown above where available.

Denmark is the country of registration for 52 commercial operators in this directory, among which DFDS ranks 6th by ships on record. Between them those companies hold 122 vessels here. 1 of them carry a published container-capacity ranking. See every operator registered in Denmark.

Founded in 1866, DFDS is 160 years old. This directory holds 43 operators founded within five years either side of that date, whose median fleet on record is 1 ships. The median founding year across all commercial operators here is 1966, and the oldest on record dates to 1514.

Provenance

Where this page comes from

Company and vessel recordsWikidata item Q1243964, released under CC0. Counted figures on this page are counts over those records.

Written summaryQuoted from DFDS on English Wikipedia, reused under CC BY-SA 4.0.

Published fleet figuresNo published fleet figure is available for this company.