How to Start Reporting Lost Fishing Gear to DFO in Canada

If you fish commercially in Canada and gear goes missing, reporting it to Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) is not optional and it is not a courtesy. Reporting requirements for commercial fisheries states the position in one sentence: as a condition of licence, all commercial harvesters are required to report lost gear to DFO. This guide walks through that duty only — what must be reported, how soon, through which route, and what to do when gear is found again. It does not cover getting a licence, and it does not cover any other catch or hail reporting your conditions of licence may require.

Why DFO asks for the report

Lost gear keeps fishing after it is lost. DFO calls abandoned, lost, or otherwise discarded fishing gear "ghost gear," and the Ghost Gear Program page describes the program, launched in 2019, as the department's response in Canadian commercial fisheries. The reporting system was built to gather information for targeted action: logging lost gear helps the department target retrieval work, find ways to prevent future loss, and build more accurate and timely data on where loss happens most often and what causes it most often. A report also lets DFO identify the owner of retrieved gear and coordinate a chance for its return. Retrieved gear, the program page notes, must be stored securely and offered back to owners, or disposed of if unclaimed.

That purpose shapes how much detail a report needs. A vague note that gear was lost somewhere does not let anyone target retrieval or return anything. The fields on the form exist because location, fishery, and gear description are what turn a report into a retrieval lead.

What must be reported, and the 24-hour deadline

A March 2026 DFO notice on conditions of licence, titled 2026 - Conditions of Licence: Changes to Reporting of Lost / Retrieved Fishing Gear, sets out the current reporting requirements. Lost gear must be reported within 24 hours of returning to port at the end of each fishing trip. Retrieval of any fishing gear that was previously reported as lost must also be reported within the same window: 24 hours of returning to port at the end of each fishing trip.

The same notice clarifies what counts as lost. The revised wording covers any equipment, apparatus, or device used in fishing activities, whether intact or detached from the main fishing gear, such as buoys or ropes. That wording is broader than the definition in older conservation harvesting plans, which described lost gear as active gear previously set by the licence holder and fishing vessel operator which was sought but not found. When the two wordings point different ways on a borderline item — a buoy that came free, a length of rope — follow the broader 2026 wording and your own conditions of licence, which remain the document that binds your fishery.

Your conditions of licence are the authority for the duty in your case. DFO's pages describe the requirement in general terms, and individual fisheries carry their own conditions. Read the lost and retrieved gear condition in your licence before the season starts, not after a loss, so the deadline and the route are already settled in your mind.

Choose the reporting route before you leave port

The March 2026 notice states that the Fishing Gear Reporting System (FGRS) is now the primary and authoritative system for reporting lost and retrieved fishing gear. If the system is unavailable, reports may be submitted through the PDF lost and retrieved fishing gear forms. Three routes are named in the notice:

• The Fishing Gear Reporting System, online. DFO encourages harvesters to use the system to meet the requirement, and step-by-step videos are available to help with it. The reporting-requirements page links to the system directly.
• A paper form. The lost fishing gear form and the retrieval form are available from the reporting-requirements page, in standard and plain text versions. A completed form must be submitted to DFO under the instructions printed on the form.
• FGRS Offline, on a mobile phone. The offline option must be installed while connected to the internet, before departing an area without connectivity. It is available for cell phone use only.

Electronic logbooks sit in a transition. Dual reporting through both logbooks and the reporting system led to confusion and data inconsistencies, the March 2026 notice says, which is why DFO is moving to a single national system. Reporting of lost and retrieved gear will be phased out of electronic logbook applications. Until the logbook reporting function is removed, submissions through logbooks will continue to be accepted, but harvesters are strongly encouraged to begin using the reporting system or approved paper forms immediately. Treat the logbook route as temporary. If your fishery's harvesting plan still describes logbook reporting, the 2026 notice is the newer statement of direction, and the reporting-requirements page is the place to confirm the current route.

For questions, or to request group training on how to use the reporting system, the March 2026 notice gives the email address DFO.LostandRetrievedGear-EnginsPerdusRecupere.MPO@dfo-mpo.gc.ca. Use that address for system questions and training requests, not as a way to file a report.

Record the details, then submit

The lost fishing gear form shows exactly what a report contains. Fields marked with an asterisk are mandatory. Have the following ready before you start, ideally noted at sea or as soon as you return:

• Who and which licence. Date of the report, first and last name of the fishing vessel operator, fisher identification number (FIN), licence number, vessel registration number (VRN), telephone, and email.
• Where the gear was lost. The last date the gear was known to be at the location, latitude and longitude, target species, and fishery management area, for example LFA 27 or NAFO 4X.
• What was lost. Number of units lost, sequential numbers of tags attached to the lost gear, a description of the gear lost, estimated length of rope lost in feet, estimated length of netting lost in feet, number of buoys lost, and a description of the buoys, including markings, sequence number, and colour.

In the online system, the same information is gathered across four pages: your information, where the gear was lost, what gear was lost, and a review page. A profile created from the first report carries the personal and licence details forward into later reports, so later submissions ask mainly for the new loss details. Check the review page against your notes before submitting. A wrong latitude, a transposed tag number, or a missing buoy description weakens the one thing the report is for: letting someone find the gear or return it to you.

The form's privacy notice states the legal basis and the stakes. Information is collected under the Fisheries Act and the Fishery (General) Regulations for the proper management and control of fisheries, and may be used for compliance review and enforcement. Failure to provide the information may result in suspension or cancellation of current licences or authorizations, and denial of future requests for licences or authorizations. That is the consequence the form itself states. Do not read a missed report as a paperwork slip with no effect.

Report a retrieval the same way, and keep sightings separate

Finding gear again does not close the file on its own. Report the retrieval of any of your own previously reported lost gear within 24 hours of returning to port at the end of the fishing trip, through the same routes: the reporting system or the retrieval form. The retrieval report ties the found gear back to the original loss report, so DFO's record stops showing gear in the water that is already back aboard.

A sighting is a different act with a different form. If you see gear that is not yours, use the ghost gear sighting report. That form covers sightings in marine and freshwater environments, whether observed at sea or from shore, and asks for a separate form for each sighting at different coordinates. It asks for the date of the sighting, contact details, any harvester licence information, the location as precisely as possible with coordinates where known, the type and estimated quantity of gear, and extra detail such as ID tags, rope patterning, buoy colour, and gear markers. With an electronic submission, a confirmation email is sent automatically. If a photograph was taken, the form directs it to the lost and retrieved gear email address, and a mailed form goes to Lost and Retrieved Gear Reporting, 12 Millennium Blvd, Suite 110, Moncton, NB, E1C 0M3.

The line between the two forms matters. The sighting form states that it must not be used by harvesters to report their own lost gear. A harvester who sights their own missing gear reports it as lost gear, and then as retrieved gear if it is recovered. A person who sights gear belonging to someone else, or gear with no visible owner, reports a sighting. Using the wrong form sends the information to the wrong workflow.

Figures not stated in this guide

Some figures and rules are deliberately not stated in this guide, because they could not be verified on a current official DFO page. Do not rely on any figure below unless you confirm it on the current DFO pages first. No fee for reporting is stated, because no fee could be verified on an official page. No penalty dollar figure for failing to report is stated, because no penalty figure could be verified on an official page; the consequence stated in this guide is the licence consequence the form's privacy notice states. Whether recreational harvesters can use the Fishing Gear Reporting System now was not stated, because the launch announcement described recreational and public access as coming at a later date and no current page confirms that access is live; the sighting form is the route described for gear that is not your own. The offline system's installation steps are not reproduced here — the notice points to a separate offline-reporting page, so check that page for the steps. Fishery-specific deadlines beyond the 24-hour rule are not stated, because individual conditions of licence govern each fishery — check yours for its deadline. If any of these figures is needed, verify it on the current DFO reporting pages or in your conditions of licence before relying on it.

Related guides:

• How to Become a Conservation Officer in Canada — the enforcement and resource-management role that works alongside fisheries regulation in the provinces and territories.
• How to Get a Business Number in Canada — the federal business number that commercial operators use across CRA accounts.
• How to File a GST/HST Return in Canada — the GST/HST filing route for operators who sell taxable goods and services in Canada.

Sources

• Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Reporting requirements for commercial fisheries — the condition-of-licence duty for all commercial harvesters, the encouragement to use the Fishing Gear Reporting System, the paper forms, the step-by-step videos and offline option, and the separate sighting form.
• Fisheries and Oceans Canada, 2026 - Conditions of Licence: Changes to Reporting of Lost / Retrieved Fishing Gear — the revised definition of lost gear, the Fishing Gear Reporting System as the primary and authoritative system, removal of reporting from electronic logbooks, the 24-hour deadlines for lost and retrieved gear, the three reporting routes, and the training contact email.
• Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Lost fishing gear form — every field on the lost gear report, the mandatory-field marking, the Fisheries Act collection authority, and the licence consequences of failing to provide the information.
• Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Ghost gear sighting report — the sighting form's scope, the separate-form-per-sighting rule, the bar on harvesters using it for their own lost gear, the confirmation email, and the mailing address.
• Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Development of the Canadian Ghost Gear Action Plan — the Ghost Gear Program launched in 2019, mandatory reporting as a condition of licence, the reporting system built for data collection, and retrieved gear being stored securely and offered back to owners.
• Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Canada continues to combat ghost gear in our oceans with launch of new reporting system — the launch of the Fishing Gear Reporting System, the requirement for all commercial harvesters to report lost gear, and how reporting helps locate, remove, and in many cases return gear to its owner.