Boat Registration

By Kimberly Duplisea, InforME

The Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife is pleased to announce the availability of the online boat registration renewal system. The online system allows residents or non-residents to renew their Maine State Boat registration online anytime 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Payment for registration renewal fees and municipal excise tax fees can be made in one seamless transaction using a Visa, MasterCard, or Discover credit or debit card. This service was developed in partnership with InforME and can be accessed at https://www.maine.gov/online/boat .

The Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife oversees the 120,000 boat registrations completed each year in the State. Prior to the online service availability, boat owners were required to visit the Department or their town office to complete this transaction. Because users were able to, in most instances, complete their vehicle registration renewals online, their ATV and snowmobile registration renewals online, their fishing license purchase online, and their trailer registration renewals online, the in-person processing of boat registration renewals was an inconvenience to boat owners as well as a strain on municipal and Department staff resources. It is anticipated that a high number of users will opt for the online approach to registrations versus the manually in-person approach.

As is the case with vehicle registration renewal online, not everyone can renew their registrations online. This is because in order to utilize the service, the user's legal residence town or, for non-residents, the town in which the boat is primarily moored must participate in the online service. This is because local excise tax dollars need to be remitted to the appropriate town officials. Currently 121 municipalities participate in the online service.

To determine if your town participates in the service, please visit https://www5.informe.org/cgi-bin/online/boat/list.pl. If you do not see the town listed, you may complete a “Request Participation” form.

Article posted on: June 15, 2009
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