Who Actually Has Authority Over Pressure Equipment in the US

Three systems that overlap and are frequently confused

The jurisdiction. Most US states — and a few cities — have boiler and pressure vessel laws administered by a chief inspector, and those laws decide what must be inspected, how often, and by whom. This is statute, not industry practice, and it varies by state.

The National Board. Registers pressure equipment, commissions inspectors who work for jurisdictions and authorised inspection agencies, and publishes NBIC for in-service inspection, repair and alteration. A National Board commission is what lets an inspector act on the jurisdiction's behalf.

API certification. An industry certification demonstrating competence against API 510, 570 or 653. Widely required by owners and contracts, and in some jurisdictions recognised for owner-user programmes — but it is not a commission from a jurisdiction.

Where inspectors get caught out

The common error is assuming an API certificate confers authority everywhere. In practice the jurisdiction decides who may perform the statutory inspection of a registered vessel, and depending on the state that may require a commissioned inspector rather than an API-certified one — or may accept an owner-user programme with API-certified inspectors, provided the programme itself is accepted. Two facilities in different states can run legitimately different arrangements for identical vessels.

The second error is treating an owner-user programme as automatic. Where states permit an owner to inspect its own equipment, that permission is typically conditional on a documented programme, qualified personnel and jurisdictional acceptance. It is a status you are granted, not a default you assume.

What this means practically

For asset owners: confirm the requirement per state where you operate, not once at head office. A multi-state programme that assumes uniformity will be non-compliant somewhere. Where you run an owner-user programme, keep its acceptance documentation as carefully as the inspection records.

For inspection contractors: know which of your scopes are statutory and which are owner-driven. They carry different qualification requirements and different consequences when a finding is contested.

For inspectors: API certification is the foundation, and a National Board commission is a distinct and additional credential that opens work API certification alone does not. Whether pursuing it is worth your time depends entirely on whether you intend to perform statutory inspection.

The unglamorous conclusion

There is no single national answer, and any source telling you otherwise is simplifying something with legal consequences. The authoritative sources are the National Board's synopsis of state rules and the jurisdiction itself — check both, per state, and record what you were told.

Related: NBIC decoded · API 510 certification · API 510 vs API 570 · programme review and jurisdictional readiness.