Reporting on the live water levels at five key points along the Rhine, from Basel to the Dutch delta. See at a glance whether the river is comfortable, running low, or running high for your river cruise. Updated daily and written in easy-to-understand, plain language, without shipping jargon or gauge numbers. Allowing you to check your route in seconds.
● Updated daily from the official measurements
On the Rhine the pinch point is Kaub, the shallow gorge stretch in the Middle Rhine: when levels there fall in a dry summer, lines such as Viking, Avalon Waterways, AmaWaterways and Riviera Travel lighten their ships, adjust itineraries or add short coach transfers around the low section. It almost always means a re-route rather than a cancellation, so check the live readings below and confirm the plan for your sailing date with your cruise line.
Five key locations from the Alps to the North Sea, each showing today’s water level for cruising.
Two main water level issues can stop a cruise. When the water is too low, there is not enough depth under the keel and ships must lighten, reroute, or bus guests past the shallow stretch. When it is too high, the gap under the bridges shrinks, and even with its wheelhouse folded down, a ship cannot pass beneath the bridge. The ship must wait until the high-water level has dropped sufficiently to allow clearance. The chart below shows how the depth at Kaub, the shallowest point on the route, changes through the year, so you can see when low water is most likely.
Many guests fly in or out through Amsterdam, and plenty of river cruises begin or end nearby, so a spare day is easy to fill. Whether your ship docks on time or your plans shift with the water, our private, tailor-made tours make the most of it.
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The whole Rhine route at a glance, from Basel to the North Sea. The five water-level points are marked, and downstream of Lobith the river splits across the Dutch delta: the Waal toward Rotterdam, the Nederrijn and Lek, the IJssel north to the IJsselmeer, and the Amsterdam-Rijnkanaal linking Utrecht and Amsterdam.
Each column is scaled to its location, from the riverbed to the local flood level. The blue section shows the navigable water depth rather than the raw sensor reading. A location turns red when the depth falls to around 1.5 m, when cruising becomes difficult.
These are class-typical estimates, not certified figures for any one ship. Whether a vessel can pass at a given level depends on a number of factors such as its exact height, how it is loaded, the specific bridge, and the live water level. The decision always rests with the cruise line and captain, made per sailing. This tool is only meant to give an impression of the current status.
Almost every river cruise line that sails the Rhine is affected by the same water, because they share the same locks, bridges and shallow stretches. If your ship is with one of these lines, the readings above apply to your sailing. You can see which ships are calling at Amsterdam and Zaandam on our river cruise calendar, or find your own cruise by line and ship.
Lines affected include Viking River Cruises, AmaWaterways, Avalon Waterways, Scenic, Emerald Cruises, Uniworld, Riviera Travel, A-ROSA, CroisiEurope, Tauck and Riverside.
The water level is measured at fixed points along the river. We report on the five locations that best describe conditions for cruising, from the Alpine-fed upper river to the Dutch delta. Each reading is against that gauge’s own zero point, so the raw figures are not directly comparable. That is why we convert every reading into the actual depth of water in the channel, in metres, so all five stretches can use the same scale, and be compared against their own normal range for the season.
Across a normal year, spring and early summer are the most reliable for water levels, with snowmelt keeping the upper river topped up. Late summer and autumn carry the most low-water risk, and deep winter the most high-water risk after prolonged rain. No single past year predicts the next, which is why this page shows today’s reading against the seasonal normal rather than a scare comparison to a record year.
See our live river cruise calendar for 2026 and 2027, with sailing dates, berths and times for the ships calling at Amsterdam, Zaandam and Zaanse Schans.
Cruise lines plan for this, and a change to the itinerary is far more common than an outright cancellation. When the river is too low, a ship may load fewer passengers, swap guests to a sister ship on the other side of a shallow stretch, or run part of the route by coach so you still see the highlights. When it is too high, the gap under the bridges shrinks; ships lower the wheelhouse to pass, slow down, and if the level reaches the official high-water mark the reach closes until it drops.
None of this is a reason to avoid a Rhine cruise. It simply helps to know the signs. If your ship’s plans change and you find yourself with time in Amsterdam or Zaandam, our private shore excursions are built around your ship’s actual schedule, with a private guide who can adapt to meet your requirements on the day.
Usually not outright. Through the 2026 low water, most lines (Viking, Avalon Waterways, AmaWaterways, Scenic and Riviera Travel) have kept cruises running by lightening the ship, swapping guests to a sister vessel beyond a shallow stretch, or bussing them past it, with full cancellations the exception. Watch the Kaub gauge on the Middle Rhine, the classic bottleneck, and confirm your exact ship and pier with your cruise line before you travel.
Kaub sits at the shallowest point of the Rhine, the Middle Rhine gorge between Koblenz and Mainz, so its reading sets the tightest constraint on the whole river. Its low-water reference (GlW) is 77 cm; below that, cargo shipping becomes uneconomic and cruise lines begin adapting. It is the single most useful gauge to watch for low water on a Rhine river cruise.
There is no single number, because every gauge has its own zero point and its own seasonal pattern. That is why each glass above shows the reading against its normal range for the time of year. When the level sits inside that band the river is behaving normally for the season; below it means low water, above it means high water.
Usually not. Cruise lines respond to low water by lightening the ship, swapping guests to a sister vessel beyond the shallow stretch, or running part of the route by coach. A full cancellation is rare. Watch the Kaub gauge in particular, as the Middle Rhine gorge is the classic bottleneck.
When the Rhine is high, the clearance under the bridges shrinks. Ships lower the wheelhouse to pass and reduce speed. If the level reaches the official high-water mark (mark II) the reach is closed to navigation until it falls, and guests may be moved between ships or taken on by coach.
Kaub, on the Middle Rhine, is the one to watch for low water, as it is the shallowest key stretch and the reference gauge for shipping. For the Dutch part of the route, Lobith is the main gauge. Basel, Maxau and Köln fill in the upper and lower river. To see where your own ship is right now, use our live river cruise ship tracker.
Every morning, from the official gauge services: PEGELONLINE for the German gauges, Rijkswaterstaat for Lobith and BAFU for Basel. The date of the latest update is shown on the page.
The gauge services publish short forecasts, roughly two days ahead for the German gauges and a little further in advance for Lobith. They are a good guide for the days just before departure, but the accuracy varies by gauge, so treat anything beyond a couple of days as indicative.
Yes. We are a private guiding service in Amsterdam and the Netherlands, and we build every tour around your ship’s actual schedule. If your itinerary shifts, or you have unexpected time in port, get in touch and we will adapt.
We cannot forecast an exact level that far ahead. Reliable water-level forecasts only run about one to two weeks out; beyond that the honest guide is the seasonal pattern, not a prediction. On the Rhine, levels are usually highest in winter and spring and lowest in late summer and early autumn. At Kaub, the shallowest and most-watched point, a normal October sits roughly between 100 and 205 cm, December between about 130 and 310 cm, and April between about 140 and 290 cm, all comfortably above the level where sailing gets difficult. So in a typical year a Christmas or spring sailing has plenty of water, and even October is usually fine. 2026 has been an unusually dry year, which is why the readings above are low right now, but most years follow the normal pattern. The chart above shows the normal range for every month, and whatever the level, cruise lines adapt rather than cancel.
Yes, but gradually. The Rhine drains a huge area, so it responds to steady, widespread rain over several days rather than a single shower, and it takes a few days for rain upstream to reach the downstream gauges. In the colder months, snow building up in the Alps matters just as much: it is released slowly as meltwater in spring, which is why spring levels are usually healthy. A wet spell is good news, but the river’s month-to-month position is set more by the season and the wider weather pattern than by any single day’s rain.
Every point on the map is an official river measuring station (a Pegel in German) run by the national water authorities: the German Waterways Administration for
Maxau, Kaub and Cologne, Rijkswaterstaat for Lobith, and the Swiss environment office for Basel. We read each point once a day from its open data service, so the numbers here follow the official measurements.
A raw gauge reading on its own is not very useful, because it is measured above a local zero point that sits at a different height at every station. To make the gauges comparable, we convert each reading into the thing that actually matters to a ship: the depth of water in the navigation channel at that point, shown in metres. We do this by adding the reading to the known depth of the fairway beneath the gauge, measured against the official low-water reference that the fairway depth is maintained to. That is the “X m of water” you see on the glasses and under the ship in the diagram above.
The shaded seasonal band is not a guess either. It comes from more than twenty years of daily records and shows the range the river normally sits in for each month. When today’s level is inside the band, the river is normal for the time of year; below it is low, and above it is high.
Where the authorities publish an official forecast, we show it directly on the gauge: Kaub and Cologne both carry a two- and four-day water-level forecast from the German waterways service. Maxau, Lobith and Basel do not release a forecast in a form we can pull in automatically, so for those we point you to the official source instead:
Please remember that the water levels on this page are for orientation only. Whether a ship sails, waits, reroutes, or moves guests to a sister vessel or a coach is always the decision of the captain and the cruise line, based on their own vessel, its draught and air draught, and the latest official information. We are an independent tour operator and simply read the public gauges so you can see at a glance how the Rhine is doing. For anything about your own sailing, always follow your cruise line.
Whether your ship docks as planned or your itinerary changes with the water, we design private, flexible days ashore in Amsterdam, Zaandam and beyond, timed to your ship.
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Readings from the official gauges (PEGELONLINE, Rijkswaterstaat, BAFU). Bridge-clearance figures are illustrative; whether a ship can pass at a given level always rests with the cruise line and captain.
Sailing from Amsterdam and want to make the most of your day in the city? Tell us what you would like to see and do, and we will craft a bespoke private tour for you.
Every official gauge from Basel, down the German Rhine and on through the Dutch Waal to the North Sea, coloured by how much water is in the shipping channel, so you can see at a glance which stretches have plenty of depth and where the river is getting too shallow to sail.