The U.S. Coast Guard has once again expanded its shutdown guidance, providing further relief for mariners by extending the validity of credentials and key application documents that expire in October and November 2025.
The new policy, known as "Update #3," states that Merchant Mariner Credentials (MMCs) with national endorsements only and medical certificates that expire in either of those two months will now remain valid until Jan. 31, 2026. To legally work under this extension, a mariner must carry a printed copy of the official Coast Guard letter with their expired credential.
The guidance also provides a critical safety net for mariners in the application process. Any mariner training course completion certificates, approval-to-test letters, and additional information letters that expire in October or November 2025 are now also extended until Jan. 31, 2026. The National Maritime Center (NMC) will not be issuing new letters reflecting these updated dates.
While the extension provides immediate relief, the shutdown's impact on the NMC's workload will have long-term consequences for all mariners.
If the government reopened tomorrow, the NMC will face a day-one backlog estimated at nearly 9,700 applications. This figure is based on the NMC's lean pre-shutdown inventory of around 2,200 applications combined with an estimated 7,500 new applications that have arrived during the 35-day shutdown, calculated from the NMC's five-year average for this period.
Based on an analysis of the NMC's own recent peak performance data, it will take an estimated 12 to 13 months to clear just the new applications that have piled up during the shutdown.
The most realistic expectation for mariners during this recovery period will be longer wait times. Based on historical data from the NMC's own metrics, the last time their application inventory was consistently in the 9,000 to 10,000 range, the corresponding Net Processing Time (NPT) was consistently between 40 and 55 days.
Mariners are still encouraged to submit applications as soon as possible to secure their place in the queue.
