Vessel Documentation Renewal
How to easily renew your Coast Guard certificate of vessel documentation with step by step instructions.
BoatWiki - Guidelines
Introduction
These guidelines will show you when and how to go about renewing your vessel certificate of documentation. Although you can pay a service company extra fees for doing this on your behalf, it is not all that difficult and will only take a few minutes of your time.
Step - 1 - Determine whether you are within the renewal time frame.
The National Vessel Documentation Center is supposed to send a renewal notification within 45 days of your certificate's expiration date. However, you should not rely on this and flag your calendar just in case. There are penalties for a late renewal regardless of whether you receive the notification. Beware of sham notifications from any other source as there are some known scammers that will charge you a substantial fee for doing this. The NVDC notification should include a documentation renewal instruction sheet along with the CG-1280 renewal form itself. The instructions will provide the time frames within which you must renew. You can get a head start on this process by downloading these items from the above WikiTags.
Step - 2 - Choose your option for submission.
You can transmit your renewal online, by email, or by regular mail. Instructions on how to go about this are included in the above WikiTags. Also, a reminder that the online renewal can only be used for a one year period.
Step - 3 - Confirm your submission.
It is a good idea to confirm that your renewal submission was received at the documentation center. If you use the email method, the NVDC should automatically return a confirmation. You can also use the online submission confirmation check shown in the above WikiTags.
Conclusion
The National Vessel documentation center can be contacted by email or telephone with any questions about your renewal. Their contact information can be found in the above WikiTags.
Credits and References
5/2/2022. - Page initiated by Team BoatWiki.
