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Underwater acoustic noise radiated by civilian, including leisure, vessels is becoming of increasing importance because of its possible impact on marine fauna. International committees of experts have been founded in order to investigate this topic and provide suitable guidelines. The European Union has included the impact of anthropogenic underwater noise on marine life into the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD). For military purposes, well-established procedures and dedicated acoustic ranges are used in measuring the underwater radiated noise of naval vessels. On the other hand, standard institutes and classification societies have only recently published measurement procedures for civilian ships. In the present paper existing standards for both measurement and data analysis of underwater noise from merchant ships are presented and compared, and the issues encountered in their field application discussed. Examples of such issues managed by Fincantieri and CETENA during measurements at sea on different ships using systems compliant with international standards are reported.