Do I need a licence for a narrowboat?
Yes, any narrowboat kept, used or moored on the inland waterways needs a current licence from the Canal & River Trust (or the Environment Agency on some rivers), alongside a valid Boat Safety Scheme certificate and insurance.
Every narrowboat kept, used or moored on the connected inland waterways needs a current licence: from the Canal & River Trust on most canals, or the Environment Agency on the rivers it manages. The licence sits alongside two other requirements: a valid Boat Safety Scheme certificate, renewed periodically, and third-party boat insurance. Licence fees are set annually and scale with the boat's length, so there's no single flat figure. Check the Canal & River Trust directly for current rates before budgeting. You choose between a home-mooring licence, tied to a fixed berth, or a continuous-cruising licence for a boat with no permanent mooring. Cruising without a valid licence isn't a grey area, see what happens if you don't have one. Once the paperwork's sorted, the boat's name is worth celebrating properly: see our narrowboat gifts.
Written by Craig Fearn, Narrowboat Gifts.
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How to steer one →
The tiller works the opposite way round, the back end swings out, and there are no brakes. Everything else follows from those three.
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