DiveOS → Maldives diving regulations → Certifications
Maldives · unofficial working notesThe regulation names two training standards and no agencies. Everything else qualifies by equivalence rather than by brand — which is a more demanding test than it sounds, and it decides who is a diver and who is, in the regulation's word, still being trained.
This is not legal advice, and it is not an official translation.
We are a software company. Not a law firm, not certified translators. Everything below is our own reading of a Dhivehi-language instrument. Treat it as a starting point for a conversation with the ministry, not as a substitute for one. Where we are unsure we say so rather than rounding it up to confidence.
Diving Regulation 2003, Chapter 2, Part 1, clause 1.
Diving in the Maldives is permitted only to people who, at the very least, either:
Read the first one carefully, because it is easy to misread as "certified by an RSTC member agency". It is not. It is the conditions for enrolment — the entry requirements for starting training, not the certificate at the end of it.
The regulation names two councils and not one agency. PADI, SSI, NAUI and the rest appear nowhere in it. They qualify through their affiliation, not by being listed.
That matters when a guest turns up with a card from something you have not heard of. The question the regulation asks is not "is this a real agency" but "does this meet the standard".
Diving Regulation 2003, Chapter 2, Part 1, clause 2.
People holding a certificate from any other training organisation may take part only if they have the knowledge and skills contained in the Open Water Training Dives, in the same way as the conditions submitted for RSTC enrolment.
So the test is substantive, not administrative. A card from an unaffiliated body is not automatically void, and it is not automatically good either. It is measured against a named body of knowledge and skills.
The regulation does not say who performs that assessment, or what evidence satisfies it. In practice the only mechanism it gives you is the one in the next section — the instructor watching the person dive.
Diving Regulation 2003, Chapter 2, Part 1, clauses 3 and 5.
Two documents, not one. As evidence of knowing how to dive, the person must submit the certificate from the centre where they trained, and a logbook showing they have diving experience.
And there is a defined fallback when the logbook is missing. The person must demonstrate to the instructor that they properly know the skills contained in the Orientation Dive.
That is worth pairing with two things we have already written about. The Orientation Dive itself is explicitly not an examination when it is triggered by a lapse in diving. Here, triggered by a missing logbook, the wording is different: the person must demonstrate the skills. The same dive, asked to do two different jobs.
And the document list in Chapter 3 sets the quantitative bar — 900 minutes or 30 dives, excluding training dives. This part sets the qualitative one. A centre needs both.
Diving Regulation 2003, Chapter 2, Part 1, clause 4.
This is the clause that makes the rest workable. If a diver does not fulfil the conditions, they are not simply turned away. They must be regarded as a person at a stage of being trained — a trainee.
And a trainee may take part only in dives conducted for the purpose of giving training, by the training centres described in clause 1.
So the regulation converts a compliance problem into a product decision. Somebody who cannot show what they need is not lost business; they are a training customer. But they cannot be quietly folded into a fun dive, because the permitted activity for that status is narrow and named.
Diving Regulation 2003, Chapter 3, Part 1. The part has no numbered clauses; it is a single paragraph.
It is short enough to give almost in full. The manner in which a dive will be conducted must be planned, and the dive made in accordance with that plan. Then the operative half:
If any change is made to the vessel's planned journey, or to the divers' dive plan, the dive centre must be made aware of it.
Two separate plans are named — the boat's and the divers' — and a change to either triggers the same duty. It runs toward the centre, which is consistent with the rest of the regulation: the vessel must stay contactable the whole time diving is in progress, and this is one of the things that channel is for.
The regulation does not say who at the centre must be told, or in what form. It says the centre must be made aware.
We cannot tell you which organisations are currently RSTC-affiliated, or what the RSTC enrolment conditions say. Those are the RSTC's documents, not the ministry's, and the regulation incorporates them by reference without reproducing them. Same for the CMAS 1-star syllabus.
The regulation also does not say who assesses equivalence under clause 2, what record of that assessment should be kept, or whether an assessment made by one centre travels with the diver to the next.
Every section names its chapter, part and clause. The enrolment-versus-certification reading in clause 1 is the one we would most like checked, because it is the difference between a low bar and a slightly odd one, and our reading is the literal one.
One caution about who to ask. The responsible department has been renamed at least twice across these instruments — Ministry of Tourism in 2003, Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture on the 2013 amendment, and ފަތުރުވެރިކަމާއި ތިމާވެށްޓާބެހޭ ވުޒާރާ, Ministry of Tourism and Environment, on the March 2026 procedure. For anything current, that last name is the one to go by.
A card, a logbook, an equivalence judgement, and a status that decides which dives a person may join — all of it settled at the desk before anyone reaches the boat. Have a look if it is useful.