U.S. maritime law effectively bars large foreign-built cruise ships from carrying passengers directly between two American ports. While most people refer to this restriction as “the Jones Act,” the specific law governing passenger travel is actually a companion statute called the Passenger Vessel Services Act (PVSA). Together, these laws shape nearly every cruise itinerary that touches the United States, from Alaska sailings to Caribbean routes out of Miami.
The Jones Act vs. the PVSA
The Jones Act, passed in 1920, restricts the transport of cargo between U.S. ports to vessels that are U.S.-built, U.S.-owned, U.S.-flagged, and operated by American crews. The PVSA applies the same basic logic to passengers. Any ship carrying people between two coastwise points in the United States must meet those requirements.
In practice, the two laws are so closely linked that “Jones Act” has become shorthand for both. But when it comes to cruise ships, the PVSA is the statute doing the heavy lifting. Violations carry a penalty of $996 per passenger transported, which for a ship carrying 3,000 or more guests would add up fast.
Why No Major Cruise Line Can Comply
Every large cruise ship operated by Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Norwegian, and similar companies is foreign-built, foreign-flagged, and largely crewed by international workers. That’s not an accident. Building a cruise ship in the United States costs roughly three times what it costs at a European or Asian shipyard, and construction timelines are longer. Operating costs tell a similar story: U.S.-flag vessels cost about 2.7 times more to run overall than foreign-flag equivalents, according to the Maritime Administration. Crewing alone is 5.3 times more expensive under the U.S. flag, and insurance runs four to five times higher.
No cruise line has found it economically viable to build and operate a large oceangoing vessel under these conditions. The result is that virtually every major cruise ship sailing from a U.S. port is registered in the Bahamas, Bermuda, Panama, or another foreign nation, making it ineligible to carry passengers on a purely domestic route.
How Cruise Lines Work Around It
The standard workaround is simple: include a foreign port on every itinerary. A cruise departing from Seattle and heading to Alaska will stop in a Canadian port like Victoria or Vancouver. A ship leaving Miami for Key West will route through the Bahamas. As long as the voyage touches a foreign destination, the PVSA doesn’t apply, because the ship isn’t transporting passengers solely between two U.S. points.
This is why you’ll rarely find a major cruise that goes from one U.S. city to another without a foreign stop in between. It also explains some routing choices that seem geographically odd. A Hawaii cruise departing from San Francisco, for example, typically includes a stop in Ensenada, Mexico, even though it adds time and fuel to the voyage. Without that stop, the ship would be illegally carrying passengers between two American ports.
The Alaska Exception
The foreign-port requirement became a serious problem during the COVID-19 pandemic. Canada closed its ports to cruise traffic in 2020 and kept restrictions in place into 2021, which meant ships couldn’t make the mandatory Canadian stop on Alaska itineraries. Without that stop, the entire Alaska cruise season faced cancellation.
Congress responded with the Alaska Tourism Restoration Act, signed into law in May 2021, which temporarily waived the PVSA requirement for cruises traveling between Washington State and Alaska. Senator Lisa Murkowski later introduced the Cruising for Alaska’s Workforce Act, which would make the exemption permanent. Under that proposal, the waiver would remain in effect until a U.S.-built ship capable of carrying more than 1,000 passengers enters service, a threshold that no American shipyard currently meets. The bill was introduced in the 118th Congress but has not become law.
Domestic Operators That Do Comply
A handful of smaller cruise lines operate fully within U.S. waters by meeting every PVSA requirement. American Cruise Lines and American Queen Voyages run river cruises and coastal itineraries on vessels that are U.S.-built, U.S.-flagged, U.S.-owned, and crewed by Americans. These ships are far smaller than oceangoing cruise liners, typically carrying a few hundred passengers at most, and ticket prices reflect the higher operating costs.
This segment of the market exists precisely because of the PVSA. If foreign-flagged megaships could sail freely between New Orleans and Memphis or up the New England coast without a foreign stop, these smaller operators would face competition from companies with dramatically lower cost structures.
What This Means for Passengers
For most cruise passengers, the PVSA’s effects show up in three ways. First, your itinerary will almost always include at least one foreign port, even if the main destinations are all American. Second, if you need to leave the ship early at a U.S. port that isn’t your final disembarkation point, you could face complications. Cruise lines sometimes require passengers who skip the foreign stop to pay a fine or make their own travel arrangements, because carrying you between two domestic ports without touching foreign soil could trigger a violation.
Third, pricing on fully domestic cruises (river trips, coastal voyages on American-flagged ships) runs significantly higher per night than comparable foreign-flagged sailings. A weeklong river cruise on an American-built vessel can easily cost two to three times what a Caribbean cruise on a foreign-flagged ship charges, largely because the operator is absorbing those elevated crew, construction, insurance, and maintenance costs.
Hawaii and Puerto Rico Routes
Hawaii is one of the most visible examples of the PVSA’s impact. Norwegian Cruise Line operates the Pride of America, one of the only large cruise ships with U.S. registry, specifically to offer inter-island Hawaii cruises without needing a foreign port call. Every other major line running Hawaii itineraries from the mainland must stop at a foreign port along the way.
Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands present similar dynamics. Both are U.S. territories, so a cruise traveling from Miami to San Juan to St. Thomas would technically be moving between domestic points. Foreign-flagged ships handle this by incorporating stops in non-U.S. Caribbean islands, keeping the voyage international and outside the PVSA’s reach.
The practical effect across all these routes is the same: U.S. maritime law doesn’t ban foreign cruise ships from visiting American ports, but it forces them to structure every voyage as an international trip. That single requirement shapes the geography of the entire cruise industry.