Jones Act Waiver Extended: Narrower Scope and More Answers for Underwriters

On August 11, the Trump administration approved a second 90-day extension of the Jones Act waiver first issued in March, effective August 17 through mid-November. The waiver remains tied to elevated fuel and shipping costs, the same pressure that prompted the original suspension. But this round comes with real changes: the sweeping exemption from March has been replaced with seven named commodities, and the approval process has tightened considerably.

SCOPE OF THE EXTENSION

Where the March waiver authorized foreign-flagged and foreign-crewed vessels to carry a broad list of cargoes between U.S. ports with minimal case-by-case review, this extension narrows both the cargo list and the approval process.

CBP and MARAD guidance confirms the waiver now covers seven specific commodities: gasoline, jet fuel, crude oil, naphtha, LNG, soybean oil, and fertilizers. Each voyage requires advance approval, cargo, purpose, and vessel information submitted and reviewed, plus a post-voyage report filed within 10 days of completion. The waiver runs August 17, 2026, through November 15, 2026; cargo must be loaded before the expiration date.

CREW INJURY LIABILITY REMAINS UNCHANGED

As with the March waiver, this extension affects only the coastwise carriage rules under 46 U.S.C. §55102. It does not modify seamen's rights under 46 U.S.C. §30104. Foreign crew operating on vessels in coastwise service under the waiver do not acquire special injury remedies, nor are existing remedies diminished. What has changed is the paper trail: where the March waiver left little record of which vessels were running repetitive domestic voyages, the new voyage-by-voyage approval and reporting requirements create a documented history for the first time.

IMPLICATIONS FOR MARINE INSURERS

• Underwriting should treat the narrower cargo list and documented approval chain as more workable than the March exemption, but should still confirm whether a vessel's insurance history and classification records match the coastwise exposure it's taking on.

• Claims teams should expect the same foreign-crew Jones Act exposure flagged in March; voyage-specific approval doesn't change the underlying legal question, it only creates better records to evaluate it against.

• Compliance reviews should request the vessel-specific approval and post-voyage report rather than relying on a general assumption that "the waiver covers this," since approval is granted voyage by voyage, not vessel by vessel.

• Agents and brokers should confirm that a client's foreign-flag ownership and financing structure, along with flag-state and sanctions status, has been reviewed alongside the usual P&I and Jones Act questions.

CONCLUSION

The extension is smaller and slower than the waiver it replaces, and for marine insurers, that's the more useful version. A shorter cargo list and a documented, voyage-specific approval chain give underwriters something the March waiver didn't: an actual record to evaluate exposure against, rather than a blanket exemption with no way to tell which vessels were running one-off cargo versus a standing domestic trade lane.

Ian Greenway

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