The quality of coatings in ballast water tanks is critical for cargo ships. IMO has delivered a standard for the protection of water ballast tanks to which new built cargo vessels have to comply with {resolution MSC.215(82)}. In case the procedure differs from the IMO standard the PSPC code gives an alternative method for approval; in this case equivalence of the protective properties has to be proved. The aim of the work is to check the coatings in ballast water tanks having been serviced for more than 5 years. In this work three different types of coating systems have been investigated by in situ electrochemical impedance measurements in ballast water tanks. All coating systems including shop primer plus one or two layer epoxy coatings. The impedance measurements show that the impedance decreases with service time. However all of them are in high impedance level which means that they are in good shape to protect the ballast water tank from corrosion. Key words: IMO coatings water ballast tanks electrochemical impedance measurements.