The United States Bowling Congress unveiled its new tiered certification structure for bowling centers during the 2025 USBC Convention and Annual Meeting in Las Vegas.
The changes aim to provide greater clarity, reduce costs and streamline the inspection process for centers, USBC said in a release.
Centers now will be classified in one of four certification tiers based on the percentage of compliance with USBC specifications. Since 2023, more than 2,600 centers have been inspected, with 72% achieving the highest tier and fewer than 2% falling into the lowest category.
The certification tiers are: Gold — centers that meet at least 90% of all specifications (currently 73% of inspected centers). Silver — centers that meet 80-89.9% of specifications (currently 22%). Bronze — centers that meet 70-79.9% of specifications (currently 4%). Standard — centers that meet less than 70% of all specifications (currently 2%).
All centers, regardless of the tier, are certified and eligible to host USBC-certified leagues and tournaments. However, USBC will not publish tier information nor show it on certification stickers. That will be left to center owners, who are under no obligation to share it.
Moving forward, centers will transition to a five-year cycle for inspections, compared to the initial time frame of every three years. This includes centers that fall into the Standard category, which previously required an annual inspection until achieving a score in one of the top three tiers. The inspection fee also has been changed to $8 per lane, or $40 per lane for the five-year cycle.
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