Article 4

All persons on board any passenger ship which departs from a port located in a Member State shall be counted before that passenger ship departs.

Before the passenger ship departs, the number of persons on board shall be communicated to the master of the ship, and reported by appropriate technical means in the single window established pursuant to Article 5 of Directive 2010/65/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council ^f1 , or, if the Member State so chooses, communicated to the designated authority by means of the Automatic Identification System.

For a transitional period of 6 years from 20 December 2017 , Member States may continue to allow that information to be communicated to the company's passenger registrar or to the shore-based company system that performs the same function, instead of requiring it to be reported in the single window or to the designated authority by means of the Automatic Identification System.