Editorial and corrections policy

People use these pages to decide whether they may legally take a boat out. A stale cut-off date can lead to a citation on the water, so every state rule points back to the official page it was read on.

Who is responsible

Radif Partners, reachable at contact@usboatercard.com.

What we read

• the boater education page of each state agency and of the District of Columbia;
• the state's boating handbook, statute or administrative rule when the agency page is incomplete;
• the federal Navigation Rules and the boating parts of 33 CFR and 46 CFR, for the practice questions;
• the BoatUS Foundation's list of states that approve its free course, for that one fact.

Sources we refuse

Course vendors, insurers, law firms, boat dealers, news articles and other guide sites never provide a figure here. A rule we cannot find on an official page is shown as "not confirmed" or "not verified yet", never filled in from memory or another site.

How the questions are written

We write every question ourselves from a federal text or a verified state fact. We never copy a question from a course exam, a vendor's test, an app or a book, and we do not present them as official.

Review cycle

A script re-reads every official page and flags quotes that changed; legislative sessions and July 1 phase-in dates are checked each year. Every page shows the date the rules were last checked.

Corrections

1. We open the official page again.
2. We correct the record and add a test for the case.
3. The pages rebuild and show the new date.

Independence

No course provider, insurer or agency pays for or reviews what is published here, and the site has no affiliate link. See also the method page. Version: 2026-10-24.