Cities can now tax cruise ships and their passengers.
H.R. 9543 — To amend the Act of July 5, 1884, to permit the imposition of taxes on vessels operating as tourist accommodations, and for other purposes. · Filed by Ed Case (D-HI) · Introduced Jun 30, 2026 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
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What it does
This bill changes a law from 1884. It lets cities, counties, and ports collect taxes on cruise ships. It also lets them tax passengers and crew members. The old law stopped local governments from doing this.
Who it affects
Cruise ship companies and passengers will pay new taxes. Cities and ports will get money from these taxes.
One thing to notice
The bill does not say how much tax cities can charge. Each city can pick its own tax amount.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
- Jun 30, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Jun 30, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and House Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committee on Transportation and…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Words to know
- taxes — money that people or companies must pay to the government
- local governments — cities, counties, and other government groups that serve a small area
- crew members — people who work on a ship
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (931 characters) on Jul 9, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 14,707 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-09-23.
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