{"id":425,"date":"2026-08-11T08:46:28","date_gmt":"2026-08-11T08:46:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/white-house-extends-jones-act-waiver-90-days-but-tightens-voyage-rules\/"},"modified":"2026-08-12T09:09:22","modified_gmt":"2026-08-12T09:09:22","slug":"white-house-extends-jones-act-waiver-90-days-but-tightens-voyage-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/white-house-extends-jones-act-waiver-90-days-but-tightens-voyage-rules\/","title":{"rendered":"White House Extends Jones Act Waiver 90 Days, but Tightens Voyage Rules"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The White House has extended for another 90 days the waiver allowing certain foreign-flagged ships to move energy and related commodities between U.S. ports, keeping emergency coastwise relief in place as the Iran war continues to disrupt global crude flows through the Strait of Hormuz. The latest extension, finalized around 10 August and due to take effect from 17 August, is the longest suspension of the century-old Jones Act in the law\u2019s history.<\/p>\n<p>Unlike earlier phases of the waiver first issued in March, the new terms pull back from blanket exemptions. Individual voyages will face case-by-case review, with the Department of War required to consult the U.S. Maritime Administration on whether Jones Act\u2013qualified tonnage is available before deciding that foreign-flag carriage can proceed.<\/p>\n<h2>Narrower Cargo List, Harder Scrutiny<\/h2>\n<p>Eligible commodities have also been tightened toward energy and fertilizer movements. Covered cargoes cited by administration briefings include fuel blend stocks, diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, crude oil, fuel oil, gas oil, bunker fuel, LPG, bitumen, petroleum coke, petroleum- or gas-derived chemicals, LNG, naphtha, soybean oil and fertilizers.<\/p>\n<p>The White House framed the changes as a response to U.S. maritime industry concerns while still preventing supply shortfalls that could disrupt military operations and domestic fuel markets. Shipbuilders and congressional allies had argued that open-ended foreign-flag coastwise carriage was undercutting the domestic fleet the Jones Act is designed to sustain.<\/p>\n<h2>What Operators Should Note<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Do not assume automatic waiver coverage<\/strong> for foreign-flag coastwise energy moves after mid-August; voyage-level approval is now part of the process.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Confirm commodity eligibility early<\/strong> against the narrowed list before nominating foreign-flag tonnage for U.S. domestic legs.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Build MARAD\/Department of War consultation time into voyage planning<\/strong>, especially for time-sensitive gasoline, diesel and jet-fuel repositioning.<\/li>\n<li><strong>U.S.-flag owners should monitor availability inquiries closely<\/strong>, as consultation on qualified tonnage is now a formal gate in the waiver path.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>RegulAs Shipping will track how the case-by-case regime performs in practice and whether further extensions or rollbacks follow as Hormuz disruption persists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Trump administration extended the Jones Act waiver for another 90 days from mid-August, while shifting from blanket relief to case-by-case voyage reviews and a narrower list of eligible energy and fertilizer cargoes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":436,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ai_generated_summary":"","wpai_meta_description":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[20,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-maritime-regulations","category-regulatory-updates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=425"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":437,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/425\/revisions\/437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regulasshipping.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}