Offshore wind is key to meeting global climate goals. If the world is to achieve the 1.5°C scenario outlined in the Paris Agreement and the Glasgow Climate Pact, installed capacity of nearly 500 gigawatts (GW) of offshore wind will be needed by 2030. By 2050, that figure will have risen to 2 465 GW. A fundamental step in supporting this technology’s successful deployment around the world is the permitting process. Currently, three models exist for this: centralised, decentralised and hybrid. European best practices show that the centralised model helps decrease risks for developers, as governments take control of the process. The decentralised, two-stage model changes this to give developers more of the risk, but also greater flexibility. The hybrid model is a combination of the other two and can be adapted easily to particular country contexts. Indeed, while any of these models could be used, it is the particular political, fiscal and cultural backdrop of a country that determines which should be used.