Schedules & fares

Ferry crossings across the United States — schedules, fares and terminals

River crossings, island routes and city ferries, each with its published timetable, current fares and the exact landing on the map.

10
Crossings
8
States
Local
port time zone

Popular crossings

River and vehicle crossings

Cable ferries and car ferries that carry a road across water, most of them run by a county, a port district or a state DOT.

Island and city ferries

Passenger and vehicle routes out to inhabited islands, plus the short urban crossings inside harbours and sounds.

How ferries work in the United States

There is no national ferry timetable in the United States. Every crossing is published by whoever runs it, and that is rarely the same body twice.

A crossing may be operated by a state department of transportation, a county road commission, a port district, a transit authority, a national park, a tribal government or a private company holding a franchise. Each publishes its own schedule, in its own format, on its own calendar. Some post a PDF once a season; others run a live vessel tracker. That fragmentation is the reason a single page per crossing is useful: the timetable, the fare table and the landing address end up in one place instead of three.

Fares follow the same pattern. A passenger fare and a vehicle fare are usually separate, the driver is sometimes included in the vehicle fare and sometimes not, and vehicles are charged by length band rather than by type. Where a crossing is free, it is normally because it forms part of a numbered highway and the state maintains it as road.

Time zones matter more here than in most countries. A reader in New York planning a crossing in Washington State is four hours away from the schedule they are looking at, and the boundary between zones does not follow state lines cleanly. Every timetable on this site is shown in the time zone of the departure landing, labelled with the zone in force on the day you are reading it, so daylight saving is handled rather than assumed.

Seasonality is the last trap. Many crossings run a full schedule in summer, a reduced one in winter, and stop entirely when ice closes a channel. Where a service is seasonal, the page says which season it is publishing and the dates that season covers.

Before you go

Vehicle lanes close first
Boarding for vehicles usually shuts several minutes before the posted departure, and earlier than the walk-on gate.
Read the alerts page, not the homepage
Operators keep cancellations and vessel swaps on a separate notices page. A schedule in the footer is not a statement that the boat is running today.
Check how you can pay
Some crossings take cards only, a few still take cash only, and toll-style crossings may sell books of tickets at a discount.
Vehicle fares go by length
Anything over the standard band — a truck, a trailer, a camper — is charged differently. Measure before you queue.
Straight from the source
Times come from the operator, the county or the state transportation department that publishes them.
Landing-level maps
Every crossing has both landings mapped at the ramp, not at the centre of the nearest town.
Fares broken out
Passenger, vehicle, driver, bicycle and surcharges are listed separately instead of a single headline number.

Crossings by state

Michigan
Drummond Island Ferry
Washington
Point Defiance–Tahlequah Ferry, Steilacoom–Anderson Island Ferry
Maine
Rockland – Vinalhaven Ferry, Bass Harbor – Swans Island Ferry
Virginia
Jamestown-Scotland Ferry
North Carolina
Cherry Branch Ferry
Ohio & Kentucky
Anderson Ferry
Maryland
Whitehaven Ferry
Oregon
Wheatland Ferry

What changes through the year

Most crossings change schedule at least twice a year. These are the patterns worth checking before you travel.

Summer
Peak schedules, extra vessels on island routes and the longest operating hours. Also the longest vehicle queues.
Fall
Summer extras come off, often on a fixed date in September or October. Check which schedule is in force before you go.
Winter
Reduced service on most routes. Ice closes some northern crossings entirely, sometimes with little notice.
Spring
Seasonal crossings reopen, frequently later than advertised if the channel is still icing or the river is high.