What Truck Do I Need to Tow a 20, 22 or 24 Ft Boat?

You have found a boat you like, and the only thing standing between you and the ramp is whether the truck in your driveway can pull it. The seller says “my half-ton pulls it fine.” The brochure for your truck says 11,000 lb. Both of those can be true and you can still be illegally overloaded on the way home. Here is what a 20, 22 and 24 ft boat actually weighs on a trailer, and which number in your truck’s paperwork is the one that stops you.

The short answer

A ready-to-tow boat package — hull, engine, full fuel, gear and trailer — runs roughly:

• 20 to 21 ft: 3,700 to 5,000 lb
• 22 to 23 ft: 4,200 to 7,500 lb
• 24 to 25 ft: 5,500 to 8,500 lb

Those spreads are enormous inside a single length, and that is the point. At 22 ft, a pontoon and an inboard wake boat are 3,300 lb apart. Length tells you almost nothing; hull type and fuel capacity tell you nearly everything. And the number that usually disqualifies a truck is not the tow rating. It is payload — the tongue weight plus the people and gear riding in the cab and bed.

What a 20, 22 or 24 ft boat actually weighs

These are published dry weights from certified boat tests by Boating magazine. Read the parenthetical notes carefully — some builders exclude the engine entirely.

Boat	LOA	Beam	Dry weight	Fuel
Lowe SS 210 CL (pontoon)	21’4”	8’6”	2,230 lb (plus engine)	30 gal
Bennington SX22 Swingback (pontoon)	21’6”	8’6”	2,491 lb	32 gal
Scout 215 Dorado (center console)	21’6”	8’6”	2,776 lb (without power)	82 gal
Axis A20 (inboard wake)	20’0”	8’2”	3,500 lb	42 gal
SunChaser Geneva 22 LR (pontoon)	22’10”	8’6”	2,061 lb	38 gal
Regal LS2 Surf (sterndrive)	22’4”	8’6”	3,900 lb	56 gal
MasterCraft NXT22 (inboard wake)	22’0”	8’3”	4,300 lb	50 gal
Malibu Wakesetter 23 MXZ (inboard wake)	23’0”	8’6”	5,400 lb	58 gal
Barletta E24QC (pontoon)	26’6”	8’6”	3,560 lb (plus engine)	34 gal
Glastron GTD 240 (deck)	24’4”	8’6”	4,250 lb	60 gal

Two things jump out. A 22-ft pontoon weighs less than half what a 22-ft wake boat weighs. And the model number is not the length: the Barletta E24 is 26’6” overall and the Bennington SX22 is 21’6”. Never plan a tow off the name on the side.

The four things dry weight leaves out

Dry weight is the start of the math, not the answer. Four items get added before you hitch up.

The engine. When a spec sheet says “plus engine” or “without power,” you are missing several hundred pounds. Suzuki publishes these dry weights for its four-strokes (suzukimarine.com, August 2026):

Outboard	Rated hp	Dry weight
DF90A	90	343-352 lb
DF150	150	518-529 lb
DF300AP	300	626-659 lb
DF350A	350	727-747 lb

Other brands land in the same territory. Twin 300s add roughly 1,300 lb before a single gallon goes in the tank.

The fuel. Gasoline runs about 6 lb per gallon, which is no rounding error on a modern boat. The Scout 215 Dorado above carries 82 gallons on a 21-footer — about 490 lb. A Boston Whaler 240 Vantage (24’2”) carries 111 gallons, or roughly 670 lb. Tow on a half tank and you save 250 to 350 lb, legally and for free.

Gear, water and batteries. Batteries, ground tackle, safety gear, a cooler, boards and whatever lives in the lockers add 200 to 400 lb on a boat this size. Drain ballast before towing; a livewell or water tank you forgot to empty is 8.3 lb per gallon.

The trailer. This is the item buyers forget entirely. Published shipping weights from EZ Loader (ezloader.com, August 2026):

Trailer	Rated for	Capacity	Trailer weight	Overall width
Single-axle V-hull	19-22 ft	2,500 lb	653 lb	96”
Tandem-axle V-hull	17-20 ft	4,400 lb	1,000 lb	96”
Tandem-axle V-hull	19-22 ft	5,200 lb	1,400 lb	96”
Tandem-axle V-hull	23-25 ft	5,800 lb	1,680 lb	96”
Tandem pontoon	20-22 ft	3,300 lb	1,100 lb	101”
Tandem pontoon	24-26 ft	5,600 lb	1,800 lb	102”

Read the capacity column as closely as the weight column. If a seller’s 24-ft boat sits on a trailer rated for 4,400 lb, the trailer is undersized and you are buying a new one. What that replacement costs is in what a used boat trailer is worth; what a finished trailer looks like is in boat trailer rust.

Loaded package weight, by size

Add it up and this is what hangs off your hitch — built from the dry weights, engine weights and trailer weights above, plus full fuel and 200 to 400 lb of gear.

What you are towing	Loaded package	Tongue weight at 6%
20-21 ft pontoon or outboard runabout	3,700-4,800 lb	220-290 lb
20 ft inboard wake boat	~5,000 lb	~300 lb
22-23 ft pontoon or tritoon	4,200-5,000 lb	250-300 lb
22-23 ft bowrider or sterndrive	5,800-6,400 lb	350-385 lb
22-23 ft inboard wake boat	7,000-7,500 lb	420-450 lb
24 ft pontoon or tritoon	5,500-6,200 lb	330-370 lb
24 ft deck boat or center console	6,500-7,400 lb	390-445 lb
24 ft wake boat or express cruiser	7,500-8,500 lb	450-510 lb

Then check it. A CAT scale at a truck stop costs a few dollars and gives you the real number for your actual rig. Every figure above is an estimate. The scale is not.

The mistake: reading only the tow rating

A tow rating is measured with a driver aboard and essentially nothing else. Your real trip has passengers, coolers, and a tongue pressing down on the ball. All of that is charged to payload — a separate, much smaller number.

Find it on the Tire and Loading Information placard on the driver’s door jamb. Federal standard 49 CFR 571.110 (FMVSS No. 110) requires it to state, in these words, “The combined weight of occupants and cargo should never exceed XXX kilograms or XXX pounds.” That sentence on your truck is the limit — not the brochure number, which describes the lightest configuration of the model, not yours.

Now spend it:

Charged to payload	22 ft sterndrive (~6,200 lb)	24 ft wake boat (~8,000 lb)
Tongue weight at 6%	372 lb	480 lb
Hitch, ball mount, weight-distribution gear	50-100 lb	80-150 lb
Four adults at 175 lb	700 lb	700 lb
Cooler, gear, dog, bed cargo	150-300 lb	150-300 lb
Total	1,270-1,470 lb	1,410-1,630 lb

Subtract that from the number on your placard. If it goes negative, you are over — no matter what the tow rating says. This is exactly how a truck rated to pull 11,000 lb fails on a 6,200 lb boat.

Two more limits sit in the same chain. GCWR caps truck plus trailer plus everything in both, and it is not the tow rating plus the GVWR. And the hitch receiver, ball mount, ball and coupler each carry their own stamped rating — the lowest one is your real limit, often a ball mount nobody checked.

Tongue weight: boats are not travel trailers

The 10 to 15 percent rule you have read applies to travel trailers. Boat trailers run lower. ShoreLand’r specifies 6 percent of package weight on a single axle and 5 percent on a tandem, and calls 5 to 7 percent acceptable. Too little causes sway; too much pushes the tow vehicle and unloads its front wheels. You adjust it by moving the boat on the bunks or moving the axle, and you measure it at the coupler at towing height.

Width, length and the 102-inch line

A great many boats in this range have a beam of exactly 8’6” — 102 inches. That is not a coincidence. Under 23 CFR 658.15, no state may set a width limit above or below 102 inches on the National Network, so builders design right up to it. Above that, you are into permits.

So at 20 to 24 ft you are almost always a legal-width load, and at 26 ft and up you often are not — the Regulator 26XO carries a 9’3” beam. Ask any seller near the line for the trailered width across the fenders, not the catalog beam. Cross it and hauling costs jump a full tier; the per-mile math is in boat transport cost. Overall length surprises people too: EZ Loader’s tandem trailer for a 23 to 25 ft boat measures 26’6” to 30’5” end to end. That is your garage, your driveway apron and your ramp turn.

Brakes, and the law nobody reads

Every loaded package in this guide is over 3,000 lb, which is the threshold that matters in most states.

• California: Vehicle Code 26302(b) requires brakes on at least two wheels for any trailer manufactured and first registered after January 1, 1966 with a gross weight of 3,000 lb or more. (California Vehicle Code, current as of August 2026.)
• Florida: Statute 316.261(3)(a) exempts trailers of 3,000 lb or less from brakes on all wheels — and only if the trailer’s total weight is no more than 40 percent of the towing vehicle’s gross weight while connected. (2026 Florida Statutes.)

Read that Florida clause again. Even a light trailer loses its exemption behind a small tow vehicle. Rules vary by state and you register where you live, so check yours.

Boat trailers almost always use surge brakes rather than electric, because the whole assembly gets dunked. Surge brakes fail quietly. On any used trailer, confirm the actuator moves freely and nothing is seized before you agree on a price.

What the market is actually offering you

We ran the three length bands against our own active US listings — 1,912 used boats across 45 to 47 states:

Band	Active listings	Typed by hull	Pontoons	Pontoon share
19.5-21.5 ft	809	432	113	26%
21.5-23.5 ft	555	284	55	19%
23.5-25.5 ft	548	294	100	34%

A third of the typed 24-ft listings are pontoons — the lightest thing in that band — while a smaller but real slice are wake boats and cruisers 2,500 lb heavier. Shop by length and you are shopping across a 3,000 lb range while calling it one category. Decide the hull type first. If pontoons are where you are headed, start with the pontoon buying guide.

What to do next

Run this in order before you commit:

• Read your door jamb placard and write down the payload number for your truck, not the brochure figure.
• Get the boat’s dry weight from the builder, and confirm in writing whether it includes the engine.
• Add engine, full fuel at 6 lb/gal, 300 lb of gear, and the trailer weight to get the package weight.
• Multiply by 6% for tongue weight, and subtract that plus passengers and cargo from your payload.
• Check the trailer’s capacity plate covers the package weight, with margin.
• Confirm the trailer’s brakes work and that your state’s threshold is met.
• Weigh the loaded rig at a CAT scale on your first trip and adjust from there.

If the math says you are over, take the cheap fixes first: tow on a half tank, move gear into the boat instead of the bed, carry fewer people in the truck. The expensive fix is a different truck. The right answer is often a different boat — a 24-ft pontoon and a 24-ft wake boat sit in the same search results and in completely different towing worlds.

Not sure whether the listing in front of you is the light one or the heavy one? Paste the listing and get an instant verdict — you will get a Buy Score, the red flags, and fair-price context before you call the seller. Then price the whole year of ownership with our boat ownership cost calculator, and take the used boat inspection checklist with you when you go look.