Commercial river craft licences

A commercial river craft is any vessel, such as a boat, punt or canoe, offered for hire with or without a boat person or chauffeur.

You may need a licence if you want to:

• hire out commercial river craft
• use commercial river craft to carry passengers

This applies to the waterways in Canterbury city centre and the lower tidal reaches of the Stour.

Types of commercial river craft licence

There are different kinds of licence including:

• Operator licence - this allows you to run a business and provide commercial river craft trips. It also means you can market your business and make sales, or tout in certain areas
• Boat person or chauffeur licence - this allows a qualified person to navigate a commercial river craft
• Commercial river craft licence -  we issue one of these for each commercial river craft once we've checked it’s suitable

When you apply we'll let you know how many of each licence you need.

Apply for a commercial river craft licence