U.S. law stemming from the need for the United States to control vessels in World War I provides vessels must be owned by a “citizen of the United States” to be U.S. registered and fly the U.S. flag. Those requirements had not been substantially revised to account for current forms of company ownership in decades until the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD) simplified those requirements on June 4, 2026.
U.S. citizenship requirements rest on a documentation or registration foundation. Every entity intending to qualify as a “citizen of the United States” must satisfy those foundational requirements. The requirements vary by business entity but in each instance the entity must be organized in the United States and have U.S. citizen management. Specifically, a corporation must have a U.S. citizen chief executive officer, a U.S. citizen chairman of the board, and no more than a minority of a quorum of the board of directors can be non-citizens. There is no beneficial ownership
