• Every boat sold in the U.S. must meet basic U.S. Coast Guard regulations—but those are minimum requirements. 
• NMMA Certification requires boats to meet the comprehensive standards set by the American Boat & Yacht Council (ABYC) covering more components and systems. 
• To earn the right to display the NMMA Certified logo on its boats, NMMA Certified boat manufacturers undergo independent, third-party inspections annually to ensure manufacturing processes consistently meet certification standards.
• Certification is voluntary—NMMA Certified boat manufacturers choose to exceed the minimum legal requirements.

• Independent, third-party inspections with hands-on assessments by professional inspectors.
• Annual facility inspections to verify manufacturing consistently meets certification standards.
• Verification against American Boat & Yacht Council (ABYC) standards, the gold standard for boat design, construction, systems, and safety.

• NMMA Certified boats are seven times less likely to be recalled by the U.S. Coast Guard than uncertified boats.
• NMMA Certification offers peace of mind that your boat was built correctly, with safety as a priority.

Look for the NMMA Certified logo on the capacity or yacht plate, located near the helm. Ask your dealer.

Look for the NMMA Certified logo on the capacity plate or yacht plate. Many manufacturers also display it in brochures or on their website. 

Unlike for cars, there are relatively few federal regulations regarding the construction of boats. There are requirements for fire extinguishers, life jackets, navigation lights and visual distress signals but these have little to do with how a boat is built and more to do with meeting minimal safety requirements. For the most part the government in the U.S. has left it up to private industry to create a body of guidance for building safe recreational boats. 

Founded in 1954, the American Boat & Yacht Council (ABYC) in a non-profit, member organization that develops voluntary safety standards for the design, construction, maintenance, and repair of recreational boats. ABYC to keep boating safe and enjoyable by making sure that a boat's construction is not at fault if something does not go according to our plan on the water. The standards and technical information reports cover all the major boat systems and the development and annual review of these standards correlates directly to the significant reduction in the number of boating accidents over the past six decades.

In 2003, NMMA and ABYC made an agreement that strengthens each organization’s efforts to encourage broad use of ABYC Standards and the NMMA Boat & Yacht Certification Program. More than 180 boatbuilders now build to the standards and 90% of the boats sold in the U.S. today are certified.

Visit www.abycinc.org to learn more about ABYC Standards.