Your Business, Your Way: Fishing Permit Renewal

Taking care of a commercial fishing business by yourself is no easy task. Commercial fishing, though it can be considered a physically demanding profession, can allow you to earn a living while you are doing something that you love. Before casting your nets, however, there are some practical matters you will need to address. Apart from hiring an experienced crew and making sure that your vessel is in conditions of navigation, it is up to you to take care of the necessary paperwork to operate your commercial fishing business. This article in particular will center on the Fishing Permit Renewals, once your boat is already up and running or, in our case, sailing.

Certificate of Documentation Renewal

To begin with, every boat used for commercial purposes, and with a net weight of over five tons, needs to be registered with the United States Coast Guard. Once you have registered your boat, you will be awarded a Certificate of Documentation. This process is known as the “Initial” Certificate of Documentation, USCG documentation, or, simply, Initial. In the case of commercial vessels, this document needs to be renewed every year. Recreational vessels, on the other hand, have their COD expired every five years.

Once your initial documentation has been sorted it is time to take care of your Fishing Permits Renewals. Keep in mind that there are two different types of Commercial Fishing Permits. Those that work at a state level and those that work at a federal level. Stay with us if you want to find out what the differences are between them.

State and Federal Permits Differences

As we were saying, you can either get state permits that are different from state to state or federal licenses that vary according to the region you are in.

The state permits depend on the Department of Natural Resources in each state. The type of permit you can get and how long it will last will depend on the particular state on one hand and the permit on the other. What you do know is that you will be allowed to fish in the area compounded from the coastline up to 3 nautical miles from shore or the freshwater from that particular state.

If you need to navigate further into the ocean to catch the fish you are looking for, you will be entering federal waters. Those waters are under the jurisdiction of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in the area that goes from 3 nautical miles from shore up to 200 nautical miles. Furthermore, there are 5 regions whose permits vary: the West and South Coasts, Alaska, the Pacific islands, and the Atlantic region. The fishing permit renewal date will depend on the license you got.

Fishing Permit Renewals Made Simple

Dealing with three different agencies to get the fishing permit renewal documentation that you need can be overwhelming. With that in mind, we created this website, the Commercial Fishing Permits Center, that lets you get all the documentation you are looking for in the same place. You won’t have to worry about remembering the expiration dates, or searching the web for the requested paperwork. Moreover, our site is SSL-encrypted so you can have peace of mind that your details will be safe with us. Contact us today and get your business started!