Jones Act Citizenship and Bareboat Charter
US coastwise trade eligibility, the citizen ownership and control requirement, and what a bareboat charter to a non-qualifying charterer does to that status.
Jones Act citizenship is the ownership and control requirement a vessel must satisfy to carry merchandise between points in the United States coastwise trade, alongside the requirements that the vessel be United States built and United States flagged. The rules are administered by the United States Coast Guard and the Maritime Administration, and eligibility is recorded by the coastwise endorsement on the vessel’s certificate of documentation.
The requirement matters to chartering because control, not only title, is tested. A bareboat charter party transfers possession and operational control of the vessel to the charterer, so a demise charter to a party that does not itself satisfy the citizenship test can put the vessel’s coastwise eligibility at risk in a way that a time or voyage charter to the same party would not.
The full article will cover the statutory citizenship tests for corporations, partnerships and trusts, the documentation and endorsement mechanics, the treatment of bareboat and time charters, leasing structures used to finance Jones Act tonnage within the citizenship rules, the waiver process, and the equivalent cabotage restrictions in other jurisdictions.