3,389 aircraft currently on the FAA registry are seaplanes or amphibians — the FAA's own aircraft-category field splits them into two groups: 218 registered as pure seaplanes (water-only, no landing gear) and 3,171 as amphibians (water and land). The most common models by registration count: the Icon A5 (200), the Republic RC-3 Seabee (123), the Quest Kodiak 100 on amphibious floats (112), the Progressive Aerodyne SeaRey LSA (106), Lake amphibians (91+45), and the classic Grumman Widgeon and Goose twins (53 and 34).
What a history check adds for a seaplane or amphibian specifically
Everything a landplane check covers — registration status, prior registrants, recent FAA filings, NTSB accident and incident history, and a serial-number cross-match that catches an accident filed under a different N-number after a rebuild — plus one thing worth asking about that a landplane buyer never has to: corrosion. Salt water in particular accelerates corrosion in airframe structure, control cables, and float or hull attach points in ways a routine annual inspection can miss if the aircraft has operated mostly in fresh water and the seller doesn't volunteer its saltwater history.
Why the used market for these is thin and history matters more
At roughly 1% of the US registered fleet, seaplanes and amphibians trade far less often than the common single-engine landplanes most buyers are used to shopping for. A thin market means fewer comparable sales to price against and a longer wait for the right listing — which raises the cost of skipping the history check on the one that does come up. An NTSB record tied to a water landing, a hard touchdown, or a float strike is exactly the kind of damage a cosmetic pre-buy walk-around won't surface.
Check a specific tail number
Use our free tail-number lookup to check registration status and a summary of what a full report would show, or see our general pre-purchase checklist for the full buying process.