This report is the result of a contracted assignment commissioned by the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management, as a contribution to the work of OSPAR’s Intersessional Correspondence Group on Marine Litter, in fulfilment of the first phase of the action “B.4.1 Prevent, locate, retrieve and handle abandoned, lost and otherwise discarded fishing gear”, included in OSPAR’s Second Regional Action Plan for Marine Litter. As a first step in the implementation of this action, this report presents results of a gap analysis on the application of the FAO’s Voluntary Guidelines on the Marking of Fishing Gear by the OSPAR’s contracting parties. Effective gear marking systems are regarded as an effective tool to combat marine litter in that losses of fishing gear are prevented, and chances of retrieval are raised.