How to use it
Use her length and beam in metres, as on her paperwork or survey. If you only know feet, times by 0.3048: 58 ft is 17.68 m. Tick the box if she has no home mooring and you will cruise from place to place. The answer keeps itself in the address bar, so you can save it or send it on.
How it is worked out
The Canal & River Trust doesn't print a price list. Its prices come from its own licence calculator, so we asked it for every length from 5 m to 43 m, with and without a home mooring. Those are the prices here, to the penny.
What we found: the price goes up for each metre of length, rounded to the nearest metre. So 12.49 m pays the 12 m price and 12.50 m pays the 13 m price. Anything under 5.5 m pays the 5 m price. Without a home mooring the price is 15% more.
Wider boats pay more. The Trust's page says a beam over 2.16 m adds 19%, and over 3.24 m adds 38%. We add that for you. Our wide-beam figure can be a penny or two away from the Trust's, so it shows to the nearest pound.
What it leaves out
Discounts are not included. The Trust's calculator offers them for electric boats, historic boats, unpowered butties and a few more. River-only and shorter licences are not here either. For any of those, and before you pay, use the Trust's own calculator.
Sources
Canal & River Trust, licence prices calculator, every band read on 30 October 2026 for a licence starting in November 2026. The page checks the price is still current and says so beside the answer. For more on what the licence covers, read what a narrowboat licence costs. To add it to the rest of the bills, try the running costs calculator.