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Every USCG boat recall, searchable by manufacturer.

1,774 recall campaigns. 982 manufacturers indexed. Pick a builder or paste a HIN — we'll show every campaign filed against it.

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Top manufacturers by recall count

Plus 902 more manufacturers with at least one recall on file — visit one directly at /recalls/[make].

How USCG boat recalls actually work

When a builder discovers a defect that creates a substantial risk of personal injury — or a failure to meet a federal safety standard — it must notify the Coast Guard and run a recall campaign: letters to registered owners, a defined remedy, the works. The campaigns in this index go back to the early 1980s and cluster in a handful of categories: fuel-system defects (the fire risk that drives the most serious campaigns), flotation and capacity problems, electrical faults, and steering or throttle failures.

Here's what the system doesn't do, and why it matters when you're buying used. Recall letters go to the owner on file at the time — when the boat sells, the chain usually breaks, and no agency tracks whether the fix was ever performed. A fifteen-year-old boat with an open fuel-system campaign may have passed through three owners since the letter went out, none of whom acted on it.

So treat this index as part of pre-purchase inspection, not trivia: check the builder before you get serious, and if a campaign touches the model you're buying, make "show me proof the recall work was done" a condition of the deal. Better still, decode the boat's HIN — we'll cross-reference the hull's manufacturer code against every campaign automatically.

Recall lookup FAQ

Where does this data come from?
The full US Coast Guard recall dataset (~1,640 campaigns going back to the early 1980s), refreshed from the USCG's recall index. We surface every recall by the manufacturer that filed it, plus model and model-year specifics where the campaign records them.
What's not in here?
Recalls filed under defunct or merged brands sometimes carry the original corporate name even if the brand still exists under a new owner — if you're checking a specific boat, paste its HIN and we'll cross-reference both the MIC and the brand name.
Are recall repairs free?
For active campaigns, manufacturers remedy safety defects at no charge to the current owner — recall obligations follow the boat, not the first buyer. For decades-old campaigns the legal obligation has usually lapsed and practical support varies: call the builder with your HIN and the campaign details before assuming either way.
The builder is out of business — what happens to its recalls?
There is no remedy path: nobody is left to perform the fix. The open defect becomes an inspection item — tell your surveyor exactly what the campaign covered so they can verify whether a previous owner had the work done, and price the boat as if it wasn't.
How is this different from car recalls?
Two ways that matter to a buyer. First, there's no completion enforcement: NHTSA tracks repair rates on cars, but no one verifies a recalled boat was ever fixed — many never are, especially after the first sale. Second, owner notification relies on registration records that go stale when boats change hands, so second and third owners often never learn a campaign exists. That's exactly why checking before you buy matters.