These requirements became effective on January 1,
2013.
The change to requirement 3h became effective on July 15, 2013.
To see the requirements with the changes highlighted, Click here.
To see the previous requirements, Click here.
To see the current requirements, Click here.
- Be active in your troop, team, crew, or ship for a period of at least 6 months after you have achieved the rank of Life Scout.
- Demonstrate that you live by the principles of the Scout Oath and Law in your daily life. List the names of individuals who know you personally and would be willing to provide a recommendation on your behalf, including parents/guardians, religious, educational, and employer references.
- Earn a total of 21 merit badges (10 more than you already have), including the following:
- While a Life Scout, serve actively in your
unit for a period of 6 months in one or more of the following positions
of responsibility:
Boy Scout troop. - Patrol leader,
- assistant senior patrol leader,
- senior patrol leader,
- Venture patrol leader,
- troop guide,
- Order of the Arrow troop representative,
- den chief,
- scribe,
- librarian,
- historian,
- quartermaster,
- junior assistant Scoutmaster,
- chaplain aide,
- instructor,
- Webmaster, or
- Leave No Trace trainer
Varsity Scout team. - Captain,
- cocaptain,
- program manager,
- squad leader,
- team secretary,
- Order of the Arrow team representative,
- librarian,
- historian
- quartermaster,
- chaplain aide,
- instructor, or
- den chief.
- Webmaster, or
- Leave No Trace trainer
Venturing crew / Sea Scout ship. - President,
- vice president,
- secretary,
- treasurer,
- quartermaster
- historian
- den chief,
- guide
- boatswain,
- boatswain's mate,
- yeoman,
- purser,
- storekeeper
- Webmaster, or
- Leave No Trace trainer
- While a Life Scout, plan, develop, and give leadership to others in a service project helpful to any religious institution, any school, or your community. (The project must benefit an organization other than Boy Scouting.) A project proposal must be approved by the organization benefiting from the effort, your unit leader and unit committee, and the council or district before you start. You must use the Eagle Scout Service Project Workbook, BSA publication No. 512-927, in meeting this requirement. (To learn more about the Eagle Scout service project, see the Guide to Advancement, topics 9.0.2.0 through 9.0.2.16.)
- Take part in a Scoutmaster conference.
- Successfully complete an Eagle Scout board of review. In preparation for your board of review, prepare and attach to your Eagle Scout Rank Application a statement of your ambitions and life purpose and a listing of positions held in your religious institution, school, camp, community, or other organizations, during which you demonstrated leadership skills. Include honors and awards received during this service. (This requirement may be met after age 18; see below.)
* You must choose only one merit badge listed in items (g) and (j). If you have earned more than one of the badges listed in items (g) and (j), choose one and list the remaining badges to make your total of 21.
AGE REQUIREMENT ELIGIBILITY
Merit badges, badges of rank, and Eagle Palms may be earned by a registered Boy Scout, Varsity Scout, or Venturer. He may earn these awards until his 18th birthday. Any Venturer who has achieved the First Class rank as a Boy Scout in a troop or Varsity Scout in a team may continue working up to his 18th birthday toward the Star, Life, and Eagle Scout ranks and Eagle Palms. An Eagle Scout board of review may occur, without special approval, within three months after the 18th birthday. Local councils must preapprove those held three to six months afterward. To initiate approval, the candidate, his parent or guardian, the unit leader, or a unit committee member attaches to the application a statement explaining the delay. Consult the Guide to Advancement in the case where a board of review is to be conducted more than six months after a candidate’s 18th birthday.
If you have a permanent physical or mental disability, or a disability expected to last more than two years, or beyond age 18, you may become an Eagle Scout by qualifying for as many required merit badges as you can and qualifying for alternative merit badges for the rest. If you seek to become an Eagle Scout under this procedure, you must submit a special application to your local council service center. Your application must be approved by your council advancement committee before you can work on alternative merit badges.
A Scout or Venturer with a disability may work toward rank advancement after he is 18 years of age if he meets the guidelines outlined in the Guide to Advancement.
The Alternate requirements are also listed in more detail under Eagle Scout Rank - Alternate Requirements in the current Boy Scout Requirements book.
Upcoming change
Cooking Merit Badge to Be Required for Eagle Starting Jan. 1, 2014
Effective Jan. 1, 2014, the Cooking merit badge will be required to obtain the Eagle Scout rank. Regardless of when a Scout earned the Life rank or began working toward Eagle, unless he fulfills all the rank requirements—with the exception of his board of review— before Jan. 1, 2014, he must earn the Cooking merit badge to become an Eagle Scout.
Note: This means that as of January 1, 2014, the number of "Eagle required" merit badges will be 13, instead of 12, and the number of "Optional" badges will drop to 8. In addition, this change to the Eagle required list will result in another change to the footnote to requirement 3 for the Star and Life ranks. Once the Cooking merit badge becomes required, the footnote will be changed as follows: "* Choose any of the 16 17 required merit badges in the 12 13 categories to fulfill requirement 3."
The Eagle Scout Service Project Workbook (#512-927)
and the Eagle Scout Application (#512-728) are available from BSA in PDF format.
The forms can be filled in on-line and saved locally.
These can be used by Scouts in lieu of the printed forms.
Click here for
the application.
Click here to get the workbook from BSA's web site.
NOTE: The workbook REQUIRES use of Adobe
Reader 9 or later, or a current version of the
Foxit PDF Reader.
Most other PDF programs can NOT be used due to the "expandable form fields"
feature included in the workbook file.
VENTURERS and SEA SCOUTS
The requirements above are those for boys enrolled as members of Boy Scout Troops (including Venture Patrols within Troops) or Varsity Scout Teams. The following requirements apply to boys registered in the Venturing Program including Sea Scouts.
- Any male Venturer who has achieved the First Class rank as a Boy Scout in a troop or Varsity Scout in a team may continue advancement toward Star, Life and Eagle Scout ranks up to his 18th birthday.
- He must meet the requirements as prescribed in the official Boy Scout Handbook and the current Boy Scout Requirements book.
- The Venturer or Sea Scout may fulfill leadership requirements by serving as president, vice president, secretary, treasurer, quartermaster, historian, den chief, guide, webmaster, Leave No Trace trainer, boatswain, boatswain's mate, yeoman, purser, or storekeeper.
- The Scoutmaster conference will be conducted by the Advisor or Skipper.
- A board of review will be conducted by the crew or ship committee.
LONE SCOUTS
For requirement 4, a Lone Scout meets the requirement by showing proof of leadership responsibility in his school, religious organization, club, or elsewhere in his community
