The article stipulates that contractual regulation of wages is carried out when concluding collective agreements and agreements of all levels, ie legal regulation of seafarers ‘wages is determined not only in individual employment agreements (seafarers’ contract), but also in collective ones. Regulation of seafarers’ labor according to an individual agreement specifies the legal norms established by the state where by local method shipowners develop more specific, detailed conditions of remuneration on the basis of norms and indicators established centrally in the collective agreement. At the same time, these contractual norms help to increase the level of benefits and guarantees provided by law to seafarers, both at the international and national levels. They are aimed at creating, forming maritime rules of conduct of a particular vessel by filling gaps in the law or establishing specific rules that complement and specify the provisions of applicable law. It is concluded that in the process of reforming labor relations on wages plays a significant role in improving the mechanisms of state and contractual regulation. The main direction of improvement is to achieve the optimal relationship between these two mechanisms. In recent years, the above regulatory mechanisms have been ignored by legal science and studied mainly by economists, which has created gaps in the study of legal methods and methods of regulating wages and largely led to deviations at the present stage from the basic principles of legal regulation. Therefore, these two main mechanisms for regulating wages: state and contract have become very relevant for more than a century of existence and require detailed study and streamlining in a modern way. The importance of state regulation of wages is not in the issuance of a large number of laws, but in their economic feasibility, social orientation and effectiveness, as wages should be based on real financial capabilities of the country, ensuring the balance of interests of all segments of the population.