Vermont Boating Laws: Registration, Safety Gear, and BUI Rules

Vermont boating laws require you to register any motorboat you run on public waters, carry Coast Guard-approved life jackets and a fire extinguisher, and hold a boating safety certificate if you were born after January 1, 1974. Once you’re on the water, a 0.08 blood alcohol limit applies, a 200-foot no-wake buffer protects shorelines and other boaters, and when you leave you have to drain and inspect the boat to keep invasive species from moving between lakes. The details below cover each of those requirements, plus what happens if you break them.

Who Needs a Boating Education Certificate

Anyone born after January 1, 1974, must complete an approved boating safety course before operating a motorboat on Vermont public waters. You have to carry the certificate while operating and show it on demand to any law enforcement officer.¹ If you’re stopped without one, you can still avoid a conviction by producing a certificate that was valid at the time of the stop when you appear in court or bring it to a State’s Attorney.

Three groups don’t need the certificate: people already licensed by the U.S. Coast Guard to operate commercial vessels, anyone operating on a body of water entirely on private property, and others exempted by Department of Public Safety rules.¹

Personal watercraft have a separate, absolute rule. No one under 16 may operate a PWC in Vermont. A certificate doesn’t change that, and there is no parental-supervision workaround.

Registering Your Boat

Every motorboat on Vermont public waters needs a current registration, no matter the horsepower. The one narrow exception is a motorboat under 10 horsepower used as a tender to an already-registered motorboat, which is treated as registered under the parent boat’s number at no extra cost.² Sailboats 15 feet or longer also have to be registered through the DMV.

You register through the DMV using Form VD-037, which asks for the hull identification number, make, model, year, and length, along with a valid bill of sale. Registrations run for one or two years, with fees set by class:

Class A, under 16 feet: $31 for one year, $57 for two years
Class 1, 16 to under 26 feet: $49 for one year, $93 for two years
Class 2, 26 to under 40 feet: $80 for one year, $155 for two years
Class 3, 40 feet and over: $153 for one year, $303 for two years

Operating an unregistered motorboat carries a fine of up to $50 per violation.³ The fine itself is modest. The bigger risk is that an expired sticker gives an officer reason to stop you and check everything else on board.

Larger vessels, five net tons or more (roughly 25 feet and up), may qualify for federal documentation through U.S. Customs and Border Protection instead of state registration. A federally documented vessel doesn’t need Vermont registration numbers but still has to follow every other state operating rule.²

Safety Gear You Must Carry

Every vessel must carry at least one wearable, U.S. Coast Guard-approved personal flotation device for each person aboard, properly fitting and in serviceable condition. Children under 12 have to actually wear a secured PFD any time the boat is underway and they’re on an open deck.⁴ A child-size jacket sitting in a compartment does not satisfy that rule.

Motorboats also need unexpired, fully charged, Coast Guard-approved fire extinguishers. The statute calls for class B-I (or 5-B) extinguishers, though a single class B-II (or 20-B) unit can substitute for two B-I units.⁴ Under federal standards, disposable extinguishers expire 12 years after the date stamped on the bottle and have to be replaced after that.⁵ Check the manufacture date before the season starts.

Vessels have to carry a sound-signaling device audible at a reasonable distance, such as a whistle or a compressed-air horn.

Rules on the Water

The rule most Vermont boaters get caught by is the 200-foot restriction. You may not operate any vessel faster than five miles per hour, and must produce no wake, within 200 feet of the shoreline, a person in the water, a canoe or rowboat, any other vessel with someone aboard, an anchored or moored vessel, or a dock or anchorage.⁶ Only sailboards and police or emergency vessels are exempt.

Vermont also prohibits careless and negligent operation, overloading a vessel beyond its rated capacity, letting an intoxicated person operate your boat, and attempting to elude law enforcement on the water.³ Standard right-of-way rules apply, with the give-way vessel required to take early, obvious action to avoid the stand-on vessel. Violations can bring fines and suspension of boating privileges.

Towing Skiers and Tubers

p>If you’re pulling anyone behind a boat on skis, a wakeboard, a kneeboard, a tube, or anything similar, the person being towed must wear a Coast Guard-approved PFD. You also need an observer on board, at least 12 years old, in addition to the operator, positioned to watch the towed person at all times.⁷

There’s one narrow exception to the observer rule. It doesn’t apply when the boat is an American Water Ski Association-approved tow boat with a wide-angle mirror of at least 48 square inches, the operator is 18 or older, and the boat is being used inside an AWSA regulation slalom course.⁷

The towed person must be kept at least 100 feet away from any swimmer, canoe, rowboat, or other light craft carrying someone. The Commissioner of Public Safety can designate specific areas where towing is allowed inside the normal 200-foot shoreline buffer, but outside those zones the standard speed and distance rules still apply.

Boating Under the Influence

It is a crime in Vermont to operate, attempt to operate, or be in actual physical control of a vessel with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.08 percent or higher. The law also covers impairment by any drug, or the combined effect of alcohol and drugs, to the point that you can’t operate safely.⁸

Vermont applies implied consent to boating. By operating a vessel on state waters, you’re deemed to have already agreed to provide a breath or blood sample if asked, and the testing follows the same procedures used for motor vehicle DUI cases.⁹

Penalties stack:

First offense: a fine between $200 and $750, plus up to one year in jail
Second or subsequent offense: a fine between $250 and $1,000, plus up to one year in jail
Any conviction suspends your right to operate any vessel (other than a nonmotorized canoe or rowboat) for one year

The suspension does not lift automatically after a year. You also have to complete Vermont’s reinstatement requirements under Section 1209a before your boating privileges come back.³ That’s the same reinstatement track used for motor vehicle DUI, which can involve costs and conditions beyond just waiting out the year.

Cleaning Your Boat Between Waters

Vermont’s aquatic nuisance species transport law applies to every boater, no matter what you’re on. Under 10 V.S.A. § 1454, you may not transport any aquatic plant, aquatic plant part, or aquatic nuisance species to or from any Vermont water body.¹⁰

In practice, that means every time you leave a water body you have to:

Inspect the vessel, trailer, vehicle, and all equipment for visible plants, plant parts, or nuisance species, and remove anything you find before you leave the access area.
Drain all water from the boat, trailer, and equipment. Drain plugs, bailers, valves, and other water-control devices must remain open during transport. Live wells, bilges, and ballast tanks all count.
Submit to inspection if an authorized station is set up at the launch, and let staff decontaminate the boat if they decide it’s necessary.

The bait exception is limited: you can keep live bait in a bait container, but you have to drain the container water and replace it with spring water or dechlorinated tap water before you leave.¹¹ Never dump unused bait into a water body. Violations of the transport law carry fines up to $1,000.¹⁰

Reporting a Boating Accident

Federal law requires the operator of any vessel in an accident to file a report with the state reporting authority when the incident causes a death, a disappearance under circumstances suggesting death or injury, an injury needing medical treatment beyond first aid, property damage of $2,000 or more, or the complete loss of a vessel.¹²

The clock is short. If someone dies within 24 hours of the accident, is injured beyond first aid, or disappears from the vessel, the report is due within 48 hours. If only the property-damage threshold is met and no one was seriously hurt, you have 10 days.¹² In Vermont, reports go to the Vermont State Police Marine Division. Failing to report a qualifying accident is a separate violation on top of whatever caused it.

1
Vermont General Assembly. Vermont Code 23 Section 3305b – Boating Safety Education
2
Vermont General Assembly. Vermont Code 23 – Motor Vehicles
3
Vermont General Assembly. Vermont Code 23 Section 3317 – Penalties
4
Vermont General Assembly. 23 V.S.A. 3306 – Lights and Equipment
5
United States Coast Guard. Fire Extinguishers Requirements for the Recreational Boater FAQ
6
Vermont General Assembly. 23 V.S.A. 3311 – Operation of Vessels; Prohibited Acts; Authority of Law Enforcement Officers
7
Vermont General Assembly. Vermont Code 23 Section 3315
8
Vermont General Assembly. 23 V.S.A. 3323 – Boating Under the Influence of Alcohol or Drugs
9
Vermont General Assembly. Vermont Code Title 23 Section 3324 – Implied Consent
10
Vermont Agency of Natural Resources. Aquatic Invasive Species Laws and Regulations
11
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Clean, Drain, Dry
12
United States Coast Guard. Accident Reporting