Environment Agency Navigation and Waterways

We are now able to process River Thames boat registration renewals for 2026.

We have resolved the problem with our new IT system and the correct charges have now been generated.

We have emailed customers to let them know about the error and to confirm the correct charge for 2026. Customers can now renew their registration as normal.

We are sorry for any inconvenience this has caused and thank you for your patience.

We are currently unable to process River Thames boat registration renewals for 2026. We are working hard to resolve the problem as soon as possible.

We issued our boat registration renewal notifications for the River Thames by email yesterday using our new IT system.

Unfortunately the system did not generate the correct charges to include the 3.8% Consumer Prices Index (CPI) increase, so the notifications are showing 2025 charges.

We have paused boat registration renewals temporarily whilst we resolve this problem.

We will update this page when we can process renewals again.

We are sorry for any inconvenience and thank you for your patience.

Once we have resolved these initial issues we will see great benefits from the use of this new IT system, which is a key step forward in moving towards digitalising the boat registration service.

Each year, we carry out an extensive programme of work to our locks, weirs and other navigation structures: replacing some where necessary, refurbishing or repairing others.

The majority of the funding for this work comes from Government.

This winter, we are investing in a range of improvements to numerous locks to improve their reliability, upgrades to weirs, repairs to footbridges and much more.

You can view the full programme, including lock closures, using this link 'River Thames restrictions and closures'.

You can request to receive updates on this work by emailing riverthames@environment-agency.gov.uk with ‘subscribe’ in the subject line.

When it comes to water quality, we understand this is increasingly important to those who enjoy the waterways for their leisure and recreation.

Facilities

With large numbers of registered vessels on our waterways, all river users must act responsibly to ensure a safe and healthy river environment is maintained so all users can enjoy the waterway. This is why we advocate that sewage waste should never be disposed of directly to the water course. All boaters should use the designated pump-out and chemical cassette disposal facilities located upon waterways, at either public facilities or within commercial boatyards and marinas. The Environment Agency provides facilities along our waterways, and many marinas have their own provision. Any expansion of facilities or installation of new sites is currently beyond our available resources, and placement of new facilities would require careful planning if budgets allowed.

Communications and Awareness

UK waterways may have their own bylaws regarding “grey” water, such as that from sinks and washing machines, and “black” water (sewage). Boaters should check these before boating on any river, with the local navigation authority, as there is variation in legislation across areas of the UK and navigation authorities. In the absence of consistent legal requirements, we have worked with RYA and others on initiatives such as the Green Blue ‘Green Guide to Inland Boating’ (access the website at this link The Green Guide to Inland Boating - The Green Blue) and Love Where You Sail (access the website at this link Love Where You Sail - The Green Blue), to promote good environmental management and appropriate disposal of sewage waste. Education and awareness is central to encouraging responsible sewage disposal by boaters. We have regular contact with stakeholders such as local boating groups, user associations and marinas to reinforce this messaging. We can also raise awareness to registered customers through their annual renewals and other communications.

Enforcement and Legal Position

The Thames Navigation Licensing & General Byelaws 1993 explicitly prohibit the discharge of sewage. However, not all waterways have the same byelaws. Byelaws are jurisdiction-specific and cannot be adopted for all waterways without going through a statutory process of drafting, consultation, and Secretary of State approval. For waterways where discharge from any vessel is not currently explicitly prohibited, changing law would have both a practical and financial impact upon boat owners – as retrofitting large holding tanks into existing craft could be both prohibitively expensive and impractical. It would also have an substantial impact on the marine trade and navigation authorities in terms of design standards, compliance and facilities.

Discharging sewage waste could result in a pollution incident that affects fish populations and /or habitats, which could result in prosecution. We do not currently have any pollution incident reports that indicate direct sewage discharge from vessels. We would review our resourcing if we had sufficient evidence that this was posing a significant impact, and was a higher risk to people and the environment, than our current priorities for maintaining a safe navigation.

We are pleased to share our mid-year report for our Plan for 2025 which is available at this link ‘Our waterways - a plan for 2025 - mid year report’.

This report provides an update on our progress against the commitments we made in our plan. We have included both quantitative and qualitative information to highlight what we have done since April 2025, against each of the objectives and associated activities. We know we still have a long way to go to improve asset reliability and the service delivery on our waterways. We are working hard to make changes to ensure improvements can be made in the future.

We published our latest Waterways plan on the Environment Agency GOV.UK website. Use this link to read the latest version 'Our Waterways - a plan for 2025'. The plan focusses on making improvements to our waterways in 2025. The objectives are to:

• keep our staff and customers safe
• make improvements to the customer experience
• secure more income to move towards a financially sustainable service
• describe the future ambition for our waterways and how we will get there

How we will update on our progress

• We reported on our progress mid summer (completed - see news story) and again in the autumn.
• We will update all our boat registration customers in their registration renewals at the end of the year.
• We will also communicate our progress throughout the year through social media and other communication channels.

Please watch our video where our Area Directors, with responsibility for our waterways, speak about the plan and what our teams are doing to contribute towards it.

A look ahead

Due to the short-term nature of our Plan for 2025, work has already commenced internally and with our stakeholders on the longer-term strategy to establish the future ambition of our waterways, once we better understand our longer-term funding position. We will keep you up to date.