The Abandoned Shipwrecks Act is a piece of United States legislation passed into law in 1988 meant to protect historic shipwrecks in US waters from treasure hunters and unauthorised salvagers by transferring the title to the wreck to the US state whose waters it lies in.

§§ 2101–2106), also known as the Abandoned Shipwrecks Act of 1987, was passed into law due to severe damage to some 3,000 historic wrecks in the Great Lakes and off the US coasts that had been salvaged, and in some cases ruined, by treasure hunters in the 1970s.

[1] On April 29, 1988, President Ronald Reagan signed the bill (Abandoned Shipwrecks Act of 1987, Pub.

States make the claim that all shipwrecks that lay embedded in their waters are abandoned and under their jurisdiction.

The confusion has resulted in numerous court cases over ownership and salvage rights of the wreck.