Professional diver's licence in Chile: the full guide to the process

What the licence is and who requires it

The professional diver's licence is the document that legally authorises you to work underwater in Chile, whether you're harvesting locos with a compressor in a cove or welding a farm cage. It's issued by DIRECTEMAR (Directorate General of the Maritime Territory and Merchant Marine), under the Chilean Navy, through its Capitanías de Puerto and Gobernaciones Marítimas spread along the coast. Without it you can't dive for pay, full stop. No serious company —not a salmon farm, not a contractor, not a farm site— will put you on a boat without seeing it, and if they do, you already know what kind of operation you're getting into.

Don't confuse it with a course certificate. The school trains you and gives you a diploma; the licence is issued by the State after you sit an exam before the maritime authority. They're two separate processes, and the second one is what actually lets you work. If you want to understand the full path before the paperwork —which course to take, how long it lasts, how much it costs, what equipment you'll need— see how to become a commercial diver in Chile, our more detailed guide on how to become a commercial diver in Chile step by step, the list of schools, and the summary of basic equipment.

The framework governing all of this is TM-035, the Diving Regulations for Professional Divers, a public document from the Navy whose last update consulted is from August 2024. We go through it in detail in our guide to TM-035; here we'll stick to the part you need to fill in the paperwork.

The licence categories, from lowest to highest

DIRECTEMAR doesn't issue a single "diver's licence": it issues licences by category, and each one authorises a different type of work with a different type of equipment. This matters because the exam, the minimum age and the schooling required all change depending on the category you apply for.

Source: DIRECTEMAR, FAQs on professional diving. directemar.cl

On minimum ages: DIRECTEMAR publishes exact figures for assistant, commercial, specialist, supervisor and instructor, but we couldn't find in the sources consulted the exact minimum age for basic or intermediate shellfish diver; confirm it directly with your Capitanía de Puerto before applying.

Notice something the application pages don't always make clear: TM-035 doesn't publish maximum depths by category. The regulation itself says that "the limitation on depth and on the use of the different types of equipment will be set by resolution of the Director General", so any figure in metres you see circulating online tied to "basic diver reaches such-and-such depth" doesn't come from the text of the regulation. The only depths that do appear in TM-035 are for mixed-gas diving: 90 metres with He-O₂ without a closed bell and 200 metres with a closed bell, which is another world entirely —saturation— covered in what a saturation diver is.

There's also the Diving Contractor category, also with four types, meant for those who organise or sell diving jobs as a business rather than for those who dive. If that route interests you later on, it's worth first comparing how the companies in the sector are organised.

The general requirements, before looking at the category

Besides the age and schooling in the table above, DIRECTEMAR and ChileAtiende ask for two things that apply across all categories:

• Chilean nationality. That's what the ChileAtiende factsheet states for this process.
• Medical and physical fitness. This is proven with the medical certificate you'll see below, and it's the document that sets the date from which the whole licence's validity runs.

If you're coming from recreational diving with a course from an international agency, that certification is no use to you here: the Chilean professional diver's licence is a separate state process, with an exam before the maritime authority. And there's no shortcut the other way either: there's no automatic recognition between the Chilean licence and certifications such as HSE, IMCA or ADCI. If at some point you want to work abroad with Chilean papers, or bring a foreign certification into Chile, you have to check it case by case with the employer and the school, not assume it. See the full picture in certifications.

The full folder of documents

This is the list of what you'll be asked for at the Capitanía de Puerto. Gather it before booking your appointment, because several documents have a validity period and if one expires while you're getting another, you have to process it again.

Source: ChileAtiende application factsheet. chileatiende.gob.cl

None of these sources details the exact price of each certificate separately (the medical one, the criminal record one, the notarised statement), so you won't find that figure here: it's not in the public record we used to write this page. What you can anticipate is that these are several processes running in parallel, at different institutions, and it's worth leaving the medical certificate for last precisely because of its 30-day validity.

Who examines you, by category

This is another point that confuses people new to the process, because it isn't the same office for every category:

Source: DIRECTEMAR, FAQs on professional diving. directemar.cl

In other words: if you're going for the most basic category, basic shellfish diver —the entry point for many people in Los Lagos, Aysén and Magallanes who start out along the shore before moving into industrial aquaculture—, you sit the exam directly at your local Capitanía de Puerto, with a practical part in the water. If you're aiming for commercial, specialist or intermediate, the exam moves up an administrative level: it's taken by the Gobernación Marítima, and it's generally theory-only. To prepare for either one, you have three options: study the text of the regulation on your own, go through a state-recognised training body, or do online simulations on the Capitanía Digital portal. If you're after a structured programme, compare duration and price in where to study commercial diving in Chile, and if your goal is specifically the intermediate category, see basic and intermediate shellfish diver.

Exam application dates are published every year on the DIRECTEMAR site, so there isn't a fixed window you can memorise once and for all: you have to check the current calendar as you get close to when you plan to sit it.

The fees, exactly

According to ChileAtiende, the process has three separate charges, not one:

Source: ChileAtiende application factsheet. chileatiende.gob.cl

These amounts are adjusted every 1 January, so the figure you see at the Capitanía on the day you go may vary slightly by year. We don't convert them to pesos here because we don't have, in the sources we use, the exact exchange rate and date the maritime authority uses to set the adjustment; better to confirm it directly at the Capitanía or on the ChileAtiende factsheet the same day you go to pay.

These fees are separate from the cost of the training course, which is another expense and a considerably bigger one. For a real reference figure: SIS Capacitaciones, in Valparaíso, charges CLP 2,900,000 for its Commercial Diver course with an underwater welding specialisation (CLP 900,000 enrolment fee with equipment included plus five interest-free instalments of CLP 400,000), starting October 2026. That's one specific school's figure, not a market price for all of them: compare options in schools.

Renewal: the same mistake, every year

Renewal works on the same logic as the initial validity: since the licence lasts one year from the date of the medical certificate, to renew you need a new medical certificate, and that new certificate again only has 30 days of validity to submit at the Capitanía. It's not a process that renews itself or sends you an automatic reminder months in advance; if you work aboard a vessel or in the field, it's easy for the date to slip past you while you're on a job.

In practice, the simplest thing is to note in your calendar the exact date of the original medical certificate —not the date you received the licence— and schedule the renewal medical exam with margin before the year is up, leaving time for the new certificate to still be valid when you go to submit it. If you let the licence lapse, you can't work legally until you renew it, and no company that follows the rules will put you on a job without a current one.

What changes with Law N° 21.789 (the Diving Act)

Alongside the licence process, which still follows TM-035, Law N° 21.789, known as the "Diving Act" (Ley de Buzos), came onto the legal radar, published on 17 February 2026. It comes into force on the first day of the sixth month after publication, that is, around 17 August 2026, the deadline by which the regulation and the Labour Directorate resolution that develop it must be issued. It's the first time a diver's employment contract has been regulated in Chile, focused on the harvesting, farming or processing of hydrobiological resources —essentially aquaculture and industrial air diving—, excluding military and police personnel and recreational diving.

The law doesn't change the licence process itself —that's still run by DIRECTEMAR under TM-035— but it does require the employer to provide "adequate technical means" and maintain sufficient safety equipment, with "permanent supervision and support" at every stage of the work. It also creates an electronic register of dives and safety conditions that can be inspected, promotes certification of workplace competencies, and strengthens protections for those working subcontracted. It also declares 18 December National Chilean Diver's Day.

The joint regulation from the Ministries of Labour and Defence that will set out the technical requirements, habitability standards, safe working methods, PPE and accident protocols is not yet published with those details at the time of writing, so there are no depths or oxygen or chamber standards to cite yet: when it's published, we'll update this page.

Source: Diario Constitucional, 17 February 2026. diarioconstitucional.cl

Why the paperwork matters more than it seems

It's tempting to treat the licence as just another bureaucratic step, something you do once and forget about. It isn't, and the trade's safety context explains why. According to DIRECTEMAR figures, 274 diving accidents were recorded at salmon farm sites between 2004 and 2026, of which 49 resulted in the worker's death. Ecoceanos director Juan Carlos Cárdenas cites a different, higher figure: 90 workers killed in activities linked to the salmon farming industry over the last twelve years (2013-2026), most of them under subcontracting.

January 2026 was particularly hard: seven deaths in a single month, according to Ecoceanos. Manuel Esteban Matus Caamaño, 29, died on 8 January diving at the "Martita" site run by Australis Mar, near Melinka, in Aysén; he was subcontracted through DM Services. That same month, on 28 January, the catamaran Koñimó I sank in the Reloncaví fjord, in the Los Lagos region, killing six crew members, none of them wearing a life jacket; the vessel belonged to the contractor Agua Santa and was working for Salmones Austral and Trusal. Between 2013 and 2026, 14 transport vessels of this kind linked to the sector sank, with around 30 crew deaths.

Not every fatal accident happens on an industrial job: Katherine Pérez Moraga, 30, died on 22 August 2022 diving at around 30 metres in Alberto de Agostini National Park, near Punta Arenas, with equipment rated only to 20 metres. A case that shows the problem isn't only salmon farming, but using equipment outside what it's certified for.

A current licence, an up-to-date medical certificate and a properly passed exam don't prevent a sinking or a bad call by the contracting company. But they are the bare minimum for someone —you, the maritime authority, your family if something happens— to be able to say you were qualified to do that job, and that if something failed, it wasn't for lack of the paperwork. In a sector where it's cited, without being an official figure, that there are some 30,000 divers in Chile (a press estimate from El Desconcierto, July 2024, with no explicit source), the licence is the one thing that sets you apart from someone improvising with a borrowed compressor.

Sources: DIRECTEMAR; Ecoceanos, March 2026, ecoceanos.cl; El Desconcierto, July 2024, eldesconcierto.cl.

The day of the process, step by step

Summed up in practical order, here's what the full process looks like, from deciding to get the licence to having it in hand:

• You finish your training (on your own, with a state-recognised body, or with simulations on Capitanía Digital) according to the category you're aiming for.
• You gather all the documentation from the table above, except the medical certificate, which you leave for last.
• You get the medical fitness certificate, knowing that from that day you have 30 days to submit it and that same date will mark when your licence expires a year from now.
• You register for the exam: at the Capitanía de Puerto if you're going for basic shellfish diver, at the Gobernación Marítima if you're going for intermediate, specialist or commercial.
• You sit the theory exam (and practical, if your category requires it).
• You pay the exam, granting and validity fees.
• You receive your licence, with the expiry date already fixed from the medical certificate, not from the day it's handed over.

With the licence in hand you can start looking for work. If you're still not clear on where the jobs are and what pay to expect, see jobs and how much a diver earns, and if you want to know what kind of job you'll end up doing depending on your category, see where diving and saturation work happens and diving support vessels.