In Florida, a day on the water can end in handcuffs. Boating under the influence is a real criminal charge under section 327.35, Florida Statutes, not a ticket, and it is prosecuted much the way a DUI is, with jail, fines, probation, and a permanent record on the line. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission makes more of these arrests than any other agency in the state, and local marine units and the United States Coast Guard work the same waters, especially on holiday weekends and during enforcement waves. If you were arrested coming off the water around Tampa Bay, the charge is serious, and the way these cases are built leaves real room to fight.
A BUI tracks the DUI statute closely, which is useful to know, because the same forensic and constitutional challenges I bring to a DUI apply here. It also differs from a DUI in ways that matter to you right now, starting with the fact that a BUI does not suspend your driver license. This page walks through what the State has to prove, what a conviction costs, how the stop and the exercises and the testing can be challenged, and where these cases get reduced or dropped.
What the State has to prove
Section 327.35 makes it a crime to operate a vessel in Florida while your normal faculties are impaired by alcohol, a chemical substance, or a controlled substance, or while your blood or breath alcohol level is 0.08 or higher. That 0.08 threshold is the same number that applies on the road, and for operators under twenty-one it drops to 0.02 under Florida’s zero-tolerance rule in section 327.355. The word vessel is broad: it covers a boat, a barge, an airboat, a jet ski, and a wave runner, and Florida courts have litigated what does and does not count, as in State v. Davis, 110 So. 3d 27 (Fla. 2d Dist. Ct. App. 2013). The word operate is broad too. It reaches actual physical control of the vessel, and even steering a vessel under tow, which is why one Florida court found actual physical control proven where a minor was at the wheel and the impaired adult was in charge. See State v. Windham, 26 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 53a (Fla. 10th Jud. Cir. Cty. Ct. 2017).
Two things follow from this. First, the State has to prove you were the operator, not a passenger, and on a crowded boat that is not always clear. Second, drinking on a boat is not itself illegal. Passengers can drink, open containers are allowed, and the operator can have consumed alcohol. The crime is operating the vessel while impaired or at or above 0.08, and that distinction is often where the case is won or lost.
| Offense | Fine | Maximum jail | Mandatory minimum | Vessel or vehicle impound |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First | $500 to $1,000 | 6 months | None | 10 days |
| Second, within 5 years | $1,000 to $2,000 | 9 months | 10 days in jail | 30 days |
| Second, outside 5 years | $1,000 to $2,000 | 9 months | None | See note |
| Third, within 10 years | Third-degree felony | 5 years | 30 days in jail | 90 days |
| Third, outside 10 years | $2,000 to $5,000 | 12 months | None | See note |
| Fourth or more | Third-degree felony, fine $2,000 or more | 5 years | See note | See note |
| 0.15+ or minor aboard | First $1,000 to $2,000; second $2,000 to $4,000; third or more $4,000 or more | First 9 months; second 12 months | Per offense level above | Per offense level above |
Figures come from section 327.35, Florida Statutes, current through 2025, and reflect the offense itself, not an accident. The 0.15 or minor enhancement in subsection (4) raises the fine and the maximum jail at each level, and only the current offense has to carry the 0.15 reading. The mandatory minimum jail and the impound terms in subsection (6) attach to a second conviction within five years (ten days in jail and a thirty-day impound) and to a third or later within ten years (thirty days in jail and a ninety-day impound), with at least forty-eight hours served consecutively. The court impounds or immobilizes the vessel that was operated or any one vehicle registered in your name, and the impound cannot run at the same time as jail. A third within ten years, and any fourth or later, is a third-degree felony punishable by up to five years. Every conviction also carries monthly reporting probation, a substance abuse course, at least fifty hours of community service on a first offense, and a $60 Brain and Spinal Cord Injury Trust Fund fine. There is no driver license suspension and no ignition interlock for a BUI. Figures last verified June 2026.
How a BUI is different from a DUI
The penalties above look a lot like a DUI, and the parallels are real: the same 0.08 line, the same 0.15 and minor enhancements, the same eight-hour hold before release, and mandatory adjudication so a judge cannot withhold under section 327.36. Three differences stand out, and two of them work in your favor.
There is no driver license suspension. A BUI is prosecuted under chapter 327, which carries no administrative license suspension and no hard suspension the way a DUI does under chapter 322. Many folks arrested for BUI are most worried about losing the license they need to get to work, and on a pure BUI that is not on the table. There is also no ignition interlock for a boat, because the statute has no interlock provision at all. What the statute does instead is impound or immobilize your vessel, or any one vehicle registered in your name, for ten, thirty, or ninety days depending on the offense level.
And there is a path that many DUIs do not have as cleanly: a reduction to careless or reckless operation of a vessel under section 327.33. When the stop, the detention, or the testing is shaky, prosecutors in this region will often agree to amend a BUI down to a boating infraction, which keeps the criminal conviction off your record. The trade runs the other way too: a BUI conviction counts as a prior if you are ever charged with a DUI, and a DUI counts as a prior BUI, under sections 327.35(6) and 316.193(6), so even without a license hit, a BUI follows you.
The stop and the detention
Most BUI cases begin with a routine boarding, not a chase. Florida marine and wildlife officers, and the Coast Guard, can stop and board a vessel to check registration, safety equipment, and documents without any suspicion that a crime is occurring, under United States v. Villamonte-Marquez, 462 U.S. 579 (1983). That part is settled, and arguing the boarding itself was illegal usually goes nowhere.
The detention is a different question. A safety and registration inspection is limited to that purpose. Once the officer has checked the paperwork and the life jackets, holding you longer to run sobriety exercises requires independent reasonable suspicion that you are impaired, and a line of Florida courts has suppressed BUI evidence where that boundary was crossed. In the Sixth Circuit, which covers Pinellas and Pasco, a court found no reasonable suspicion to detain a boater and take him to a marina for exercises where the only evidence was the odor of alcohol and an admission to four beers over an unknown stretch of time. See State v. Crago, 27 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 1027b (Fla. 6th Cir. 2020). Courts in other circuits have thrown out two-hour detentions and detentions ordered just to run informal exercises. See State v. Nesseler, 12 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 966 (Fla. 11th Jud. Cir. Cty. Ct. 2005), State v. Henderson, 14 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 892 (Fla. 14th Jud. Cir. Cty. Ct. 2007), and State v. Mooney, 25 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 469 (Fla. 7th Jud. Cir. Cty. Ct. 2017). A mild odor of alcohol with red, glassy eyes, the classic boating writeup, has been held insufficient for probable cause to arrest. See State v. Mayer, 22 Fla. L. Weekly Supp. 661 (Fla. 4th Cir. Ct. 2014).
This is the heart of many BUI defenses, and it is where my background as a former Assistant Public Defender and a Fourth Amendment litigator does the most work. I read the boarding, the timeline, and the body-worn and vessel video against what the law allowed the officer to do, and when the detention outran its purpose, that is a motion to suppress.
The seated field sobriety exercises
On the road, an officer uses three standardized exercises validated by NHTSA: horizontal gaze nystagmus, the walk and turn, and the one-leg stand. On the water, none of those work, so officers use a separate set called the seated battery, built for boating and administered with the person seated, including a seated time-estimation exercise, an alphabet exercise, finger-to-nose, the palm pat, a finger count, and horizontal gaze nystagmus. These are not the validated roadside exercises, and they carry far less scientific support.
The bigger problem is that a sober person coming off the water can look impaired. The Coast Guard’s own materials describe the environmental stressors of boating: sun, wind, glare, vibration, and engine and water noise, all of which affect balance, depth perception, and coordination. Add sea legs, the balance disturbance many folks feel after hours on a rocking deck, and a flushed face and bloodshot eyes from a day in the sun, and you have the exact signs an officer is trained to score as intoxication. Officers often have minimal training in these exercises, an eight-hour or twenty-four-hour course, and they frequently lean on a handheld preliminary breath unit before any lawful arrest, which is its own problem.
As an NHTSA-qualified field sobriety instructor, I teach how these exercises are supposed to be administered and scored, and I use that to take apart how they were run in your case: the wrong instructions, the wrong scoring, the conditions that made a clean performance impossible, and the leap from a few imperfect movements to an opinion of impairment.
Breath and blood testing
If you gave a breath or blood sample, the science behind challenging it does not change just because the case is a BUI. The same Florida Department of Law Enforcement Alcohol Testing Program regulates the breath instruments and the blood analysts for boating and driving alike, and BUI breath samples run on the same Intoxilyzer 8000 as DUI samples. Every challenge I bring in a DUI blood or breath case is available here: the instrument’s inspection and calibration records, the agency inspector’s logs, the maintenance history, and the chain of custody on a blood draw.
That matters because Florida’s presumptions of impairment apply to a BUI the same way they apply to a DUI, under section 327.354, and those presumptions can be attacked. Where blood was drawn for medical treatment rather than for the investigation, or where the testing did not follow the statute, courts have held it was error to instruct the jury on the presumption at all. See Cameron v. State. where there was a serious injury or a death, the officer can demand a blood draw without an arrest, which raises its own questions about probable cause and procedure, as in State v. Floyd. part of a BUI sits squarely in my forensic practice as one of six ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientists in Florida.
Refusing the test
Refusing the breath, blood, or urine test in a BUI case does not suspend your driver license, because there is no license suspension in the boating scheme. Instead, the refusal carries a $500 civil penalty under sections 327.352 and 327.35215. You can and should contest that penalty before a county judge within thirty days, and if the judge finds probable cause was lacking, the penalty is set aside, which can also hand you useful testimony for the criminal case. If you have a prior refusal on record, a second refusal of a breath or urine test can be charged as a separate first-degree misdemeanor under section 327.359. Until the $500 is paid or set aside your vessel operating privilege can be held, but your driver license is not part of this.
When someone is hurt
BUI charges escalate fast when there is a crash, and Florida’s 2025 changes under Trenton’s Law made the worst of them harsher. Causing property damage or injury to another person while operating under the influence is a first-degree misdemeanor. Causing serious bodily injury, as defined in section 327.353, is a third-degree felony. Causing a death is BUI manslaughter, a second-degree felony that now carries a four-year mandatory minimum prison sentence, and it rises to a first-degree felony punishable by up to thirty years if you left without rendering aid after a crash you knew or should have known about under section 327.30, or if you have a prior conviction for BUI manslaughter, DUI manslaughter, vehicular homicide, or vessel homicide. As of January 1, 2025, BUI manslaughter was also added to the offenses for which a court can order pretrial detention, so bond is no longer automatic in the most serious cases. These cases turn on accident reconstruction and on biomechanical proof of who was operating and what caused the injury, and they are defended very differently from a routine BUI.
Where these cases happen around Tampa Bay
Most of the BUI arrests I see come off the busy local water: the Intracoastal and the passes, John’s Pass, the Gulf beaches, the popular sandbars, and the causeways across Boca Ciega Bay and Tampa Bay. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission makes more BUI arrests in this region than any other agency, the county marine units run the same water, and the United States Coast Guard partners with both, with the spikes landing on the Fourth of July and Operation Dry Water, holiday weekends, and the summer evening run back to the ramps. The pattern is almost always the same: a safety, registration, or fisheries inspection that needs no suspicion, then a writeup of watery, glassy, bloodshot eyes and a pivot into a BUI investigation. That pivot is the pressure point, because a day in the Gulf sun gives many folks those same eyes.
Because the agencies, the water, and the courthouse are local, the county pages below go into that detail for each one, including where your case is heard and how a first BUI tends to resolve.
Explore boating under the influence
I started out as an Assistant Public Defender in Florida’s Thirteenth Judicial Circuit, in Tampa, and today I am one of six ACS-CHAL Forensic Lawyer-Scientists in Florida and an NHTSA-qualified field sobriety instructor. A BUI puts the stop, the exercises, and the testing all in play at once, which is the exact ground I work on every day. I can give you a straight read on whether your case is a suppression fight, a reduction to a boating infraction, or a trial. Learn more about my background.
The testing and the stop in a BUI lean on the same work as a DUI. If your case turns on the chemical evidence or on the constitutionality of the boarding, those are covered in depth in the blood test, breath test, field sobriety, and search and seizure sections, and the sentencing side is mapped out in the DUI penalties section, including the diversion programs that, like DETER, can reach a BUI.
Florida BUI questions
Will a BUI suspend my driver license in Florida?
No. A BUI is prosecuted under chapter 327, which has no administrative license suspension and no ignition interlock, so a boating charge does not suspend your driver license the way a DUI does. Refusing the breath, blood, or urine test brings a $500 civil penalty, not a license suspension, and you can contest that penalty before a county judge within thirty days. One caution: a BUI conviction can still be counted as a prior to enhance the jail and fines on a future DUI, so it reaches your record in that sense even though it does not touch your license.
What is the penalty for a first BUI in Florida?
A first BUI conviction carries a fine of $500 to $1,000, up to six months in jail, monthly reporting probation, a substance abuse course, at least fifty hours of community service, a ten-day impound or immobilization of your vessel or one vehicle, and a $60 trust fund fine. If your breath or blood level was 0.15 or higher, or a person under eighteen was aboard, the fine rises to $1,000 to $2,000 and the maximum jail rises to nine months.
Can a BUI be reduced or dropped?
Often, yes. Many first-offense BUIs without a crash, a high reading, or an injury are reduced to careless or reckless operation of a vessel under section 327.33, which keeps the criminal conviction off your record, or are dismissed when the stop, the detention, or the testing breaks down. Whether that path is open depends on the facts of your case and on the prosecutor, who decides at sole discretion.
Can an officer stop my boat without any reason?
Yes, for a safety and registration inspection. Florida marine and wildlife officers and the Coast Guard can board a vessel to check documents and equipment without any suspicion of a crime. That inspection is limited to its purpose, though. Holding you longer to run sobriety exercises requires independent reasonable suspicion that you are impaired, and Florida courts, including in the Sixth Circuit covering Pinellas and Pasco, have suppressed BUI evidence where the detention outran that purpose.
Are the boat sobriety exercises reliable?
They are the seated battery, designed for the water, not the roadside exercises validated by NHTSA, and they carry far less scientific support. Sun, wind, glare, and the sea legs many people feel after hours on a rocking deck produce the same signs an officer is trained to score as impairment in a sober boater. As an NHTSA-qualified field sobriety instructor, I challenge how the exercises were chosen, administered, and scored in your case.
Is a BUI a felony?
Usually it is a misdemeanor. A third BUI within ten years of a prior, and any fourth or later BUI, is a third-degree felony. A BUI that causes serious bodily injury is a third-degree felony, and a BUI that causes a death is BUI manslaughter, a second-degree felony that now carries a four-year mandatory minimum and rises to a first-degree felony, up to thirty years, if the operator left without rendering aid or has a prior conviction for BUI or DUI manslaughter, vehicular homicide, or vessel homicide.
Where do most BUI arrests happen around Pinellas and Tampa Bay?
Most come off the busy water: the Intracoastal Waterway and the passes, the Gulf beaches from St. Pete Beach through Clearwater, John's Pass, the popular sandbars, and the causeways across Boca Ciega Bay and Tampa Bay. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office Marine Unit, and the Coast Guard step up patrols over the Fourth of July and Operation Dry Water, on holiday weekends, and on summer evenings as boats head back to the ramps.
This page is general information about Florida law, not legal advice, and it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Boating under the influence is governed by section 327.35 and related sections of chapter 327, Florida Statutes, including sections 327.352, 327.35215, 327.354, and 327.36. Charge reductions and program eligibility are decided by each State Attorney at sole discretion and can change at any time. Every case turns on its own facts, and past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
