USCG-approved captain's license courses, with the approval numbers.

No — an approved course is one of two routes to the exam, not a requirement. You can study on your own and sit the exam modules at a Regional Examination Center, or take a course whose certificate the Coast Guard accepts in lieu of those modules. The course never replaces the other requirements: documented sea service, the CG-719K physical, a drug test, TWIC and CPR/First Aid are still yours to complete either way.

Each approved course carries an NMC-issued identifier such as BBBCAS-340. It is how the Coast Guard ties your course certificate to a specific approved course and scope, and it is what you can check against the NMC's published list before you pay. A school that cannot give you an approval number for the exact credential, route and tonnage you want is not selling you an approved course for that scope.

Only within the scope the approval names. Approvals are granted for a specific credential and scope — OUPV versus Master, Inland versus Great Lakes and Inland versus Near Coastal, and the tonnage band — so a course approved for OUPV Inland does not cover Master Near Coastal. Confirm the approval covers your exact target before enrolling, and remember the tonnage limit on a Master credential is computed from your own service under 46 CFR 11.422, not chosen by the school.

Course completion is generally expected within one year of your application, mirroring the one-year validity of an Approval to Test. Many approval entries also state that the certificate may be used for one application resulting in the issuance of an endorsement and not for later transactions. Check the wording for your specific course with the school or the NMC.

It is built from the official one. The National Maritime Center publishes its course-approval list as a PDF that it updates every Wednesday; this directory is a snapshot of that document taken 2026-07-15, narrowed to the small-vessel courses relevant to a captain's license and grouped so you can filter by credential and state. The NMC document is authoritative — if a detail here matters to your application, verify it against the current list and with the school.

The list covers 29 states, and the state shown is the school's primary campus — the NMC notes that providers may hold approvals for additional locations, so a school listed in a neighbouring state may teach near you. Many courses are also delivered online or at satellite sites. If your state looks empty, clear the state filter and check the school's own site for locations.