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DUI costs for merchant mariners: the Coast Guard prices the wait in its own table

A shoreside DUI follows a mariner to work through a federal checkpoint most drivers never meet: the Coast Guard's credentialing system. Under 46 CFR section 10.213, the Coast Guard checks the National Driver Register before issuing or renewing a Merchant Mariner Credential, and it judges DUI and other alcohol or drug motor-vehicle convictions against a published table of assessment periods. The priced unit in that table is time — how long the credential waits — and the cash components are the credential fees in 46 CFR section 10.219. This page prices both, the same way our pilot page priced the FAA's certificate consequences: from the regulation, with no invented salary figures.

The assessment table in section 10.213, row by row

Table 1 to paragraph (c) of section 10.213 — titled, in the regulation, guidelines for evaluating applicants for credentials who have National Driver Register motor vehicle convictions involving dangerous drugs or alcohol — works as follows. One conviction, less than one year old: the assessment period is one year from the date of conviction, meaning the application waits out that year. One conviction, more than one but less than three years old: the application will be processed, unless a licence suspension or revocation is still in effect, and the applicant will be advised that additional convictions may jeopardise the credential. One conviction, more than three years old: the application will be processed. Two or more convictions, any of them less than three years old: the assessment period runs one year since the last conviction and at least three years from the second most recent conviction, unless a suspension or revocation is still in effect. Two or more convictions, all more than three years old: the application will be processed unless a suspension or revocation is still in effect. Section 10.213(b) adds the outer limit for civil matters: the Coast Guard will not consider National Driver Register-listed civil convictions more than three years old unless the information relates to a current suspension or revocation of the applicant's licence to operate a motor vehicle. An unpaid suspension anywhere therefore freezes the whole table — clearing the underlying state licence case, priced in the state breakdowns, is the first credential expense in practice even though it is not a Coast Guard fee.

The credential fees are small; the wait is the cost

Section 10.219's fee table is the only cash schedule in the system, and its figures are modest: a $45 issuance fee on every credential, evaluation fees from $50 to $100 depending on the transaction, and examination fees from $45 to $140, with a renewal of an officer endorsement priced at $50 evaluation, $45 examination and $45 issuance. A mariner whose renewal simply lands after a DUI assessment period has run pays exactly those ordinary fees — the Coast Guard publishes no DUI surcharge, no reinstatement premium and no penalty fee anywhere in section 10.219, and this page invents none. The economic weight sits in the assessment period itself: a first-time applicant whose conviction is six months old waits roughly six more months before the application is processed, and a credential holder facing action under the separate suspension and revocation system in 46 CFR part 5 — the system that governs misconduct proceedings against an existing credential, distinct from the application guidelines priced here — faces a process whose cost is measured in time off the water. Lost wages during an assessment period or a part 5 proceeding are real, individual and unpublished; they are named here as the largest unpriced component rather than estimated, the same discipline our military page applied to forfeiture of pay.

Suitability evidence: what the regulation lets an applicant show

Section 10.211, the criminal record review rule that works alongside section 10.213, lists the factors the Coast Guard may consider where an applicant has alcohol or drug related convictions or applies before an assessment period has run: proof of completion of an accredited alcohol or drug abuse rehabilitation programme, active membership in a rehabilitation or counselling group, and character references attesting to sobriety and reliability, among other suitability evidence. Rehabilitation programmes charge their own fees in the private market; no Coast Guard schedule publishes them, so they are described here and not priced — a mariner should budget them from the provider's own published charges, not from any figure on this page. Two further boundaries deserve stating. The Transportation Worker Identification Credential is a separate TSA credential with its own application process; its fee is set by TSA, is not part of the Coast Guard schedule, and is not reproduced here. And the shoreside case itself — the fine, the state programme, the licence reinstatement where the conviction happened — remains priced where it belongs, in that state's breakdown, beginning with the state pages on our states index. The mariner's stack is the state stack plus the credential wait plus the section 10.219 fees, and no single total is published for it anywhere.

Sources: 46 CFR §§ 10.211, 10.213 (National Driver Register; table 1 to paragraph (c)), 10.219 (fees, table 1). Last verified: November 2026.

Reading the table before you apply

The table rewards timing. The same single conviction is a one-year wait at six months old, a processed application with a warning at eighteen months, and a processed application outright after three years — so the date of conviction, not the date of arrest, is the number to check before paying any fee, and an application filed into the wrong window risks the evaluation fee on a file that cannot yet move. Mariners holding a credential rather than applying for one should read part 5 of the same chapter alongside this page, because the application guidelines priced here are only half the regulatory exposure a DUI creates.

Sources: 46 CFR §§ 10.211, 10.213, 10.219. Last verified: November 2026. This page is educational information about costs only — not legal advice. Laws and fees change; confirm current figures with your court and your state's driver-licensing agency.