The boundaries of inland waterways open for navigation are determined by the Ministry of Transport and Communications. The corresponding decree No. 12 of April 23, 2020 was published on the National Legal Internet Portal.

Inland waterways of the Republic of Belarus are located in the Basins of the Dnieper, Neman, Western Dvina and Bug rivers. The length of the country’s rivers is more than 50 thousand km. Of these, about 3.5 thousand km are suitable for transport navigation. Currently, about 2 thousand km are used, including about 530,6 km on the Dnieper River, Berezina – 304,3 km, Sozh 298,9 km, Pripyat – 466,4 km, Neman – 90,8 km, Western Dvina – 197,3 km, Dnieper – Bugsky the channel – 92,9 km, Mukhavets – 59.1 km, Pina – 41.1 km, the upper section of the Pripyat River – 7 km, Mikashevichi Canal – 6 km, Goryn – 13.5 km, Turovsky zaton – 1.5 km, Augustovsky Canal – 21.2 km, Svisloch – 4.6 km. Of these, 1,252.1 km with guaranteed track dimensions. The Dneprovsko – Bugsky Canal has undergone several reconstructions in order to improve the navigational conditions.

The Dnieper-Bug Canal (formerly the Royal Canal) is a navigable canal on the territory of Belarus, built in the period from 1775 to 1783. It connects the Pina (a tributary of the Pripyat; the Dnieper basin) and the Mukhovets (a tributary of the Western Bug; the Vistula basin). The total length is 244 km, while the length of the canal from Brest to Pinsk is 196 km (including the sewerage part of the Pina River – 74 km, the watershed part of the canal – 58 km; the sewerage part of the Mukhovets River – 64 km).

According to the European Agreement on the Most Important Inland Waterways of International Importance dated January 19, 1996, the canal is part of the main Dnieper-Vistula waterway E-40 (Gdansk – Warsaw – Brest – Pinsk – Mozyr – Kiev – Kherson). With the help of the channel, it is theoretically possible to connect the basins of the Baltic and Black Seas to water. Nevertheless, through navigation on this waterway is not yet possible due to the fact that the section from Brest to Warsaw along the Western Bug River is not navigable, as well as due to the fact that the Mukhovets River is blocked off in Brest by a blind dam.

The Augustow Canal is an outstanding hydraulic structure of the 19th century, one of the largest canals in Europe, included in the tentative UNESCO World Heritage List.

There are only three such channels in the world: the Caledonian channel in Great Britain, the Gotha channel in Sweden and the Augustow channel located in Poland and Belarus.

The waterway with a total length of about 102 km starts from Lake Serwy near the Polish Augustow and runs almost to the Belarusian Grodno. Artificial channels 45 km long connected eleven rivers (35 km) and seven lakes (22 km).