eFoil Rules

The order in which the rules bite

Eight questions decide whether an eFoil is legal on a given stretch of water, and countries take them in much this order. The label comes first. Call the board a vessel, a personal watercraft or a beach craft, and that one word pulls in or leaves out most of what follows. Each source below carries its number, date and article, checked against the published text in October 2026. Many of these texts never mention eFoils, and where a conclusion rests on such a text, the sentence says so rather than passing an inference off as the letter of the law.

1. Classification as a vessel, watercraft, motorboat, personal watercraft (PWC) or beach craft.
2. Licence or proof of competency, often tied to power, speed or distance from shore.
3. Age, set nationally, locally or only by the school.
4. Registration, from numbers on each side to nothing at all.
5. Safety kit such as lifejacket class, kill cord, whistle or light.
6. Speed bands near the shore and permits inside harbours.
7. Closed waters, from single lakes to a whole country.
8. Insurance, rarely national and often a permit condition.

Read it as a planning aid with a date on it, not as legal advice. Bye-laws add a local layer to national law, and on any harbour, lake or coast the authority in charge decides what is allowed.

Licence or proof of competency

Canada asks for proof on board. Under SOR/99-53, ss. 3(1) and 4(1), anyone operating a recreational craft fitted with a motor carries a Pleasure Craft Operator Card (test pass of 75 per cent or more) or, for a rented craft, a signed rental safety checklist. Transport Canada applies this to electric motors too and does not accept a copy. Section 3(2) exempts accredited courses under an instructor and non-resident craft staying under 45 consecutive days, and the rule does not apply in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.

Florida Statutes s. 327.395(1) require a boating safety identification card, or a 90 day temporary certificate, for anyone born on or after 1 January 1988 running a motor of 10 hp or more. California has required its Boater Card for every motorised vessel operator, whatever their age, since 1 January 2025 (HNC s. 678.11(b)), with rental operators exempt. In New South Wales a boat licence is needed from 10 knots, and above 25 knots the full PWC rules apply. Western Australia asks for a Recreational Skipper's Ticket above 4.5 kW, and Queensland needs no licence at 4.5 kW or less (Marine Safety Regulation 2016, s 55(d)).

The UK sits at the other end. No national licence applies to a private eFoil there: MGN 599, paragraph 9.1, keeps the STCW Regulations 2022 off small pleasure vessels, and MGN 684 sets no training requirement. The RYA reads it that way, and nothing in the texts contradicts it. None of the Irish national texts checked for this page asks for an eFoil licence, though local bye-laws can require permits.

Spain's RD 875/2014, article 10, as amended by RD 1188/2025 from 1 October 2026, asks for no title on beach craft within 2 nautical miles of the point of departure, by daylight, from age 18, and an eFoil sits inside that beach craft group. Italy requires a patente nautica beyond six miles or above 30 kW (D.Lgs. 171/2005, art. 39 c. 1); the step from there to an eFoil is an inference, since the article never names one. France sets its threshold at 4.5 kW (décret 2007-1167), and whether a PNM needs a licence is still an open question.

Registration and numbers

In the US an eFoil gets a certificate of number from its home state once the Hull Identification Number is validated. Florida charges Class A-1, under 12 feet, “$5.50 for each 12-month period registered” plus fees (Fla. Stat. s. 328.72). An eFoil, being well under 12 feet, falls in that class, and registration goes through the county tax collector. California's DMV notice VIN 2023-12 of 20 December 2023 lists eFoils among vessels that must be titled and registered. Michigan registers all watercraft with a motor, electric included, and Hawaii treats eFoils as motorised vessels subject to registration.

In the UK registration is voluntary (MGN 684, paragraph 4.1), and the Small Ships Register charges £35 for five years. Two authorities insist on it. Windermere keeps its own register (£48 new), and the Environment Agency registers every vessel on its waterways, the non-tidal Thames included.

New South Wales registers boards above 4.0 kW, with numbers at least 50 mm high on each side. Western Australia registers boards above 4.5 kW under exemption WAMA-2025-207904, valid until 1 August 2027. Queensland needs none under 3 kW (s 26(2)(a)), which by implication puts a stronger board on the register. Spain frees beach craft from registration (RD 1435/2010, art. 3.2). Ireland's national texts set none for an eFoil, as far as a search of them shows. For Canada, Italy and Thailand the question stayed open on our side, and France has left it open on its own.

Speed, shore bands, harbour permits

In UK harbours the harbour authority sets the working rules, through harbour directions that article 11(1) of the Watercraft Order applies to watercraft. Poole Harbour's Local Notice to Mariners 15/2026 applies its PWC rules to eFoils, with a permit at £28.92 a day or £229.19 a year, faster riding only in the PWC Area north of Brownsea Island, third-party insurance, and a fine of up to £1,000 plus costs for riding without a permit. The Port of London allows no personal watercraft above Lower Hope Point.

Canada caps electric and power-driven vessels at 10 km/h within 30 m of the shore in Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, on British Columbia's rivers and lakes and on other listed waters (SOR/2008-120, s. 2(7)). Florida lets local authorities set idle zones within 500 feet of boat ramps and slow zones within 300 feet of bridge fenders (Fla. Stat. s. 327.46). Slow speed there means “fully off plane and completely settled into the water”, a state a board up on its foil plainly does not meet. New South Wales keeps eFoils out of the Sydney Harbour PWC Exclusion Zone unless they hold a specific exemption.

Spain keeps motor craft out of buoyed bathing zones and makes them cross the 200 m strip off beaches straight out or in at 3 knots or less (RD 1043/2003, art. 6). Italy leaves it to local ordinances. Lake Como's ordinance 1/2026 names the eFoil and fines breaches at 60 to 600 euros, and Rimini sends motor boards at least 1000 m out. In France the prefects' coastal rules (Mediterranean arrêté 109/2024, Atlantic arrêté 2018/090) cap speed at 5 knots inside the 300 m band. The mayor polices that band, which is why the town's beach plan comes first in practice.

eFoil insurance and offences

The UK sets no national insurance duty for a private eFoil; neither the Watercraft Order 2023 nor MGN 684 nor MGN 599 contains one. The duty arrives with local permits. The Canal & River Trust and South West Lakes Trust want cover of £2 million; Anglesey, Gwynedd, Conwy and Langstone Harbour want £3 million, and Poole asks for third-party insurance without stating a minimum. Article 6 of the Order applies section 58 of the Merchant Shipping Act 1995, so dangerous use, including under drink or drugs, carries up to two years on indictment.

Italy requires third-party liability cover for motorised pleasure craft in public waters (D.Lgs. 209/2005, art. 123), and a motor board in public water is hard to keep outside that wording. Florida asks liveries for at least $500,000 per person and $1 million per event (s. 327.54(7)(a)), a rule for rental businesses rather than private owners. For Australia, Spain, France, Ireland, Canada, Thailand and US federal law our sheets show no insurance duty for a private rider, so ask your insurer.

Canada prices its offences in a schedule. The Contraventions Regulations (SOR/96-313, Schedule I.1) list $350 for riding a propeller board, $250 for riding without proof of competency and $200 for speeding near shore. Spain counts riding inside buoyed bathing zones as a serious infringement (RDL 2/2011, art. 307.2 l).