No Entry Sign

No Entry Sign

A no entry sign is used aboard ships to mark compartments, decks, or doorways that are off-limits to unauthorised personnel, whether because of an active hazard, ongoing maintenance, or a restricted operational area such as the bridge or a cargo control room. This pictogram-only design communicates the restriction instantly to anyone approaching the space, including visiting contractors, agency crew, and passengers who may not read the language the vessel’s other notices are printed in, making it one of the most universally applied prohibition signs found on a typical commercial vessel.

The pictogram shows a black silhouette of a walking figure, overlaid with the red diagonal bar and red circle standard to the ISO 7010 prohibition family, requiring no additional wording to be understood. This no entry sign is catalogued under IMPA code 33.8540 and ISSA code 47.585.40, the references ship chandlers and marine safety suppliers use to pull exact replacement stock when updating restricted-area signage during a refit or new-build outfit.

Typical Restricted Areas Aboard a Vessel

Steering gear compartments, thruster rooms, high-voltage switchboard spaces, and temporary hazard zones created during maintenance work are among the most common locations for this sign, alongside doors to areas under permit-to-work control where only named personnel should pass. It is also fitted at the base of ladders and hatches leading into confined spaces awaiting gas-free certification. Officers building a restricted-access plan for a new vessel often draw on our full range of prohibition signs to cover every compartment identified during the initial safety walk-round, rather than fitting signage reactively after an incident.

The sign is produced on fire-retardant board suited to both interior machinery spaces and exposed weather-deck locations, with UV-stable printing that resists fading from direct sunlight or engine room heat over years of continuous use. Because restricted areas often coincide with locations exposed to oil residue and high humidity, the printed pictogram is finished to resist smudging and staining that would otherwise make an older sign difficult to read at a glance. The board itself is also impact-resistant, an important quality at hatch coamings and ladder bases where equipment or tools are frequently carried past.

Stock is held in self-adhesive vinyl for smooth doors and bulkheads, and rigid panel for exterior or high-wear mounting points such as hatch coamings. Reordering against IMPA 33.8540 or ISSA 47.585.40 lets a vessel’s safety officer specify exactly this no entry sign when refreshing restricted-area signage fleet-wide, without any risk of a different prohibition symbol being substituted in error. A mid-sized rigid panel is the most commonly ordered format, sized to be legible from several metres away at a compartment entrance.

Supporting Restricted-Access Safety Management

Controlling access to hazardous compartments is a core element of workplace safety management, and the ISO 7010 pictogram standard behind this sign gives ship operators a standardised way to mark those boundaries that is recognised across ports and flag states, complementing the AS 1319 conventions many fleets already follow. Fitting the same no entry sign design fleet-wide means a permit-to-work system backed by physical signage looks and reads identically from one vessel to the next. It also removes any ambiguity for shore-based contractors who may only visit a particular vessel once, during a single dry-docking or repair period.

During a permit-to-work job such as confined-space gas-freeing or electrical isolation, the responsible officer will typically post this no entry sign at every access point to the work area before the job starts and only remove it once the space has been formally handed back, giving anyone approaching a clear, physical indication that the usual access rules are suspended for that location. This simple step avoids relying on verbal handover alone, which is easy to miss during a shift change or when multiple contractors are working different jobs across the same deck at once. Keeping a small reserve of signs in the safety store, rather than ordering one at a time, means a job is never delayed waiting for the correct restricted-access signage to arrive.