What the Coast Guard Record Shows on Paddling

You can encounter different totals when comparing published paddling fatality statistics: the Coast Guard’s 2024 paddlecraft rows total 143 deaths, while Paddling Magazine reports 165 paddlesports deaths (U.S. Coast Guard, Table 24, 2024; Paddling Magazine, July 25, 2025).¹²

The Coast Guard’s Recreational Boating Statistics for 2019–2024 contain several tables with different purposes. Table 24 separates deaths by craft. Table 1’s combined canoe-and-kayak line for 2019–2023 becomes a paddlecraft line including standup paddleboards in 2024. You need that scope distinction when comparing its casualty totals. The reporting-policy change effective January 1, 2024 also affects comparisons across years.

This page summarizes published safety guidance. It is not a substitute for instruction, and conditions on your water may differ. Check the current rules for the state and water you paddle.

One more thing before the tables. These numbers cannot become a per-person risk rate for paddlers. The Coast Guard publishes rates per registered vessel, but many states do not register canoes, kayaks, or paddleboards (U.S. Coast Guard, 2023 and 2024).

Table 24 separates deaths by vessel type and cause of death. It does not record brand, instruction method or individual skill (U.S. Coast Guard, 2019–2024).

Key Takeaways

Among deaths with known vessel type, the U.S. Coast Guard’s 2024 executive summary ranks the vessel types with the highest percentage of deaths as open motorboats at 46 percent, paddlecraft at 26 percent and pontoons at 8 percent, and gives the paddlecraft share by craft as kayaks 16 percent, canoes 4.5 percent and standup paddleboards 5 percent (U.S. Coast Guard, 2024).
The U.S. Coast Guard’s 2024 report records 556 recreational boating deaths, a 1.4 percent decrease from 2023 (p. 6).
Where life-jacket use was known, 87 percent of drowning victims were not wearing one, according to the U.S. Coast Guard’s 2024 report; this figure covers all vessel types.
Canoe deaths totaled 39 in 2019 and 25 in 2024, kayak deaths ranged from 86 to 112 across the years shown, and standup paddleboard deaths rose from 12 in 2019 to 29 in 2024, per U.S. Coast Guard Recreational Boating Statistics, 2019 to 2024.
The U.S. Coast Guard’s 2024 report states that 76 percent of fatal victims whose cause of death was known drowned.

Paddling Deaths Per Year by Craft, 2019 to 2024

The U.S. Coast Guard’s death counts by vessel type, year by year, 2019 to 2024. ¹

Vessel Type	2019	2020	2021	2022	2023	2024
Canoe	39	42	46	46	43	25
Kayak	86	112	96	86	95	89
Standup Paddleboard	12	10	18	17	11	29
Paddlecraft Total	137	164	160	149	149	143
All Vessels	613	767	658	636	564	556

Source: U.S. Coast Guard, Recreational Boating Statistics, Table 24, page 48 (page 49 in the 2024 edition), 2019-2024.

Kayaks show the highest death count among paddlecraft every year, ranging from 86 to 112.

On Table 24, canoe deaths stayed between 39 and 46 from 2019 to 2023 and dropped to 25 in 2024, and standup paddleboard deaths rose from 12 in 2019 to 29 in 2024 (U.S. Coast Guard, Table 24, 2019 to 2024).

Together, those three paddlecraft types account for 137 to 164 deaths per year across the six-year span (U.S. Coast Guard, Table 24, 2019 to 2024).

Rowboats sit in their own category and do not count as paddlecraft in Coast Guard statistics. Table 24 records 18 deaths in 2019, 23 in 2021, 11 in 2022, 11 in 2023 and 8 in 2024; this list omits the 2020 rowboat figure (U.S. Coast Guard, 2019–2024).

All vessels combined, from motorboats to sailboats to paddlecraft, ranged from a high of 767 deaths in 2020 down to 556 in 2024 (U.S. Coast Guard, Table 24, 2019 to 2024).

How Table 1 and Table 24 Reconcile

This table uses the Coast Guard’s Table 1 casualty lines. For 2019–2023, adding Table 24’s standup paddleboard deaths to Table 1’s canoe-and-kayak deaths reproduces the three-craft totals above: 125 + 12 = 137 in 2019, for example. In 2024, Table 1 already includes paddleboards, so both tables total 143 paddlecraft deaths.

Year	What the Line Covers	Drownings	Other Deaths	Total Deaths	Injuries
2019	Canoe and kayak	107	18	125	121
2020	Canoe and kayak	131	23	154	117
2021	Canoe and kayak	122	20	142	80
2022	Canoe and kayak	118	14	132	63
2023	Canoe and kayak	108	30	138	64
2024	Paddlecraft including paddleboards	124	19	143	73

Source: U.S. Coast Guard, Recreational Boating Statistics, Table 1, page 7 in each edition, 2019-2024.

From 2019 to 2023 this line counted canoes and kayaks together and counted standup paddleboards separately, while the 2024 edition printed one combined paddlecraft line, so the two are not a single series (U.S. Coast Guard, 2019 to 2024).

That label change matters more than it looks. Comparing 2023 to 2024 on this line adds paddleboards to one side of the comparison and not the other (U.S. Coast Guard, 2023 and 2024).

On the Table 1 lines above, drownings outnumber other deaths in every year shown, 2019 through 2024 (U.S. Coast Guard, Table 1, 2019 to 2024). In 2023, for example, canoeing and kayaking drownings reached 108, with 30 more deaths from other causes, for 138 total deaths and 64 injuries.

The U.S. Coast Guard’s 2024 executive summary lists open motorboats at 46 percent, paddlecraft at 26 percent and pontoons at 8 percent. Its stated base is deaths where the vessel-type data was known. Table 35 records 556 total deaths, including 3 with unknown vessel type, leaving 553 deaths with known vessel type (U.S. Coast Guard, 2024, pp. 6 and 67).¹

The same summary gives kayaks 16 percent, canoes 4.5 percent and standup paddleboards 5 percent. Each is a share of those deaths with known vessel type, not of the 143 paddlecraft deaths (U.S. Coast Guard, 2024, executive summary and Table 35).¹

Life Jackets and Drowning: What the Record Says

The U.S. Coast Guard’s 2024 report shows that where life-jacket use was known, 87 percent of drowning victims were not wearing one; this figure covers all vessel types (U.S. Coast Guard, 2024).

The same report states that 76 percent of fatal victims whose cause of death was known drowned. On the Table 1 lines above, drownings outnumber other deaths in every year shown.

Paddlecraft-Specific Wear Figures

About 86 percent of the 113 paddlecraft drowning victims with known life-jacket wear status in 2023 were not wearing one: 97 divided by 97 plus 16. The U.S. Coast Guard’s Table 35 canoe, kayak and paddleboard rows record 118 drownings in total: 97 not wearing a life jacket, 16 wearing one and 5 with unknown wear status. The 5 unknown cases are excluded from the percentage (U.S. Coast Guard, 2023, p. 66).

The U.S. Coast Guard’s 2024 report also carries Table 35, on page 67. Its canoe, kayak and standup paddleboard drowning rows sum to 124 victims: 105 not wearing a personal flotation device, 18 wearing one and 1 with unknown wear status. Among the 123 with known wear status, about 85 percent were not wearing one (105 divided by 123; U.S. Coast Guard, 2024, Table 35).¹

The 2024 paddlecraft drowning share is about 87 percent: 124 drownings divided by all 143 paddlecraft deaths (Table 1, p. 7). Its base differs from the known-wear base above. The American Canoe Association’s Smart Start Chapter 1 says to wear your life jacket every time you get on the water (p. 7; PDF metadata May 12, 2026).³

Injury Counts for 2023 and 2024, and Why to Trust Them Less

Injury numbers tell part of the story, but only part. The U.S. Coast Guard’s Table 34 carries per-vessel injury rows for 2023 and 2024 (U.S. Coast Guard, Table 34, 2023 and 2024).

Vessel Type	2023 Injuries	2024 Injuries
Canoe	20	16
Kayak	44	44
Standup Paddleboard	5	13
Paddlecraft Total (canoe, kayak and SUP; excludes rowboat)	69	73
Rowboat	5	9

Source: U.S. Coast Guard, Recreational Boating Statistics, Table 34, page 66 (page 67 in the 2024 edition), 2023-2024.

The Coast Guard is blunt about how much weight these figures can carry. In its own words:

It is recommended that any researcher focus on fatal data since the confidence of this data is very high… Data on non-fatal incidents have a much lower confidence level. Non-fatal incidents are severely under-reported because boaters are unaware of reporting requirements or are unwilling to report.

That is the agency describing its own data, not an outside critic (U.S. Coast Guard, 2024). The injury numbers above it represent only a slice of what happens on the water.

Within that slice, and on Table 34, canoe injuries fell from 20 to 16, kayak injuries held at 44, paddleboard injuries rose from 5 to 13, and rowboat injuries climbed from 5 to 9, while combined paddlecraft injuries rose from 69 to 73 (U.S. Coast Guard, Table 34, 2023 and 2024).

Why the Coast Guard Publishes No Paddlecraft Fatality Rate

The Coast Guard publishes no paddlecraft-specific fatality rate (U.S. Coast Guard, 2024). It notes a problem with calculating rates per 100,000 registered vessels: not all states register the same types of boats, and many states do not register non-motorized vessels like canoes, kayaks, and paddleboards.

For that context, here is how the all-vessel rate moved, on the Coast Guard’s Table 31 and each executive summary (U.S. Coast Guard, 2019 to 2024):

2019: 5.2 deaths per 100,000 registered vessels
2020: 6.5
2021: 5.5
2022: 5.4
2023: 4.9
2024: 4.8

Those rates rest on registered vessel counts of 11,878,542 in 2019 and 11,674,073 in 2024 (U.S. Coast Guard, Table 31, 2019 to 2024). Your state may not count non-motorized craft in that system at all.

The 2024 Reporting Policy Change

Coast Guard Policy Letter 23-01 CH-1, revised in September 2023, changed how boating incidents are counted and took effect for incidents on or after January 1, 2024. ⁴

That policy letter narrowed the reporting thresholds for boating incidents. Occurrences solely involving craft such as pool float toys, innertubes, surfboards and air mattresses typically do not require federal reporting and, if reported, are excluded from the statistics (Coast Guard Policy Letter 23-01 CH-1, revised September 2023).

The U.S. Coast Guard’s 2024 report explains that, based on its analysis of reportable incidents recorded from 2015 through 2019, it expected the policy change to reduce annual reported counts by the following percentages (p. 9). The report names the 2015–2019 analysis but does not give the exact denominator or averaging method for these forecasts; they are expected decreases in annual reported counts:¹

A 2.8 percent decrease in reported incidents
A 3.0 percent decrease in reported deaths
A 4.3 percent decrease in reported injuries

Those are the decreases the Coast Guard expected from the policy change itself, so the 2024 statistics are not perfectly comparable with the data from 2019 to 2023.

The U.S. Coast Guard’s 2024 edition also switched the word “accident” to “incident” where appropriate in the report and changed “life jacket” to “personal flotation device” (U.S. Coast Guard, 2024).

Why Paddling Magazine and the Coast Guard Print Different Totals

Paddling Magazine’s July 25, 2025 article reports 183 paddlesports deaths for 2023 and 165 for 2024. The U.S. Coast Guard’s Table 24 canoe, kayak and standup paddleboard rows total 149 and 143, respectively.¹²

The calculation below adds the Coast Guard’s rowboat and inflatable rows to its three paddlecraft rows. The sums reproduce the magazine’s totals. This is this page’s reconstruction; the magazine article does not state that addition as its method.

Vessel Type	2023 Deaths	2024 Deaths
Canoe	43	25
Kayak	95	89
Standup Paddleboard	11	29
Coast Guard Paddlecraft Total	149	143
Rowboat	11	8
Inflatable	23	14
Calculated Total Including Rowboats and Inflatables	183	165

Sources: component rows from U.S. Coast Guard, Recreational Boating Statistics, Table 24, 2023–2024; magazine totals from Paddling Magazine, July 25, 2025. Calculation: 149 + 11 + 23 = 183; 143 + 8 + 14 = 165.

One more mix-up is easy to make with standup paddleboards. A figure of 40 for 2024 is the Table 14 vessels-involved count, not the Table 24 death count of 29 (U.S. Coast Guard, 2024).

Where to Get the Numbers Yourself

The U.S. Coast Guard publishes one annual report a year, and each of its 2019 to 2024 editions holds several different tables (U.S. Coast Guard, 2019 to 2024). Different groups count paddlecraft in different ways.

The U.S. Coast Guard’s 2019 to 2024 editions carry the death counts in Table 24, the executive-summary casualty line in Table 1, the injury rows in Table 34 and the life-jacket wear rows in Table 35 (U.S. Coast Guard, 2019 to 2024).

Reading the Record Without Fooling Yourself

The paddling safety numbers shift with which table is read and how each year’s edition groups the craft in Table 1 (U.S. Coast Guard, 2019 to 2024).

On the Table 24 series above, kayaks carry the highest paddlecraft death count in every year from 2019 to 2024 (U.S. Coast Guard, Table 24, 2019 to 2024). The Coast Guard publishes no paddlecraft-specific fatality rate, and Policy Letter 23-01 CH-1, revised September 2023, changed what gets counted from 2024 (U.S. Coast Guard, 2024).

Check the current rules for the state and water you paddle, and pull the Coast Guard’s own annual report for the year you need. For practical next steps, see required safety gear for paddling and paddling lessons and certification.