Living aboard a canal boat full-time is legal and common across the network, provided the paperwork is in order: a current licence for a narrowboat, a valid Boat Safety Scheme certificate, and insurance.
How you moor decides the rest
Beyond the paperwork, how you moor is the thing that decides what your life looks like. Most liveaboards either hold a residential mooring, a fixed berth that sometimes needs separate planning permission depending on the site, or they cruise continuously: moving the boat in earnest and regularly rather than settling in one spot, under the terms the Canal & River Trust sets for continuous cruisers.
The 14-day rule, and what it does not say
The second route has a number attached, and it is the number most people arrive here looking for. Without a home mooring the Trust allows "no longer than 14 days on most of the network or less where signs indicate" — and that second half matters, because visitor moorings in busy places are routinely signed for 1, 2 or 5 days and the shorter sign is the one that binds. The movement then has to add up to a genuine progression round the network rather than a shuffle between the same two spots (Canal & River Trust continuous cruising, read 9 September 2026). The Trust is careful about what it does not specify: "the law does not stipulate how far you must cruise or how often you must move, but you should be on a continuous journey, not just moving backwards and forwards along one stretch of water". So there is no minimum mileage to satisfy, and no way to satisfy it by ticking one off either.
There is no separate register of "liveaboards" anywhere in this: CRT licenses the boat, not the lifestyle. What stays constant through every mooring and every move is the boat's identity, the name painted on the side. Mark it properly with our canal boat gifts.
People ask this before they have looked at a single boat, which is the ground thinking about it covers. If the answer is yes, the next thing to work out is what you'd be living on: what a narrowboat is.