Merit Badges

About Merit Badges

You can learn about sports, crafts, science, trades, business, and future careers as you earn merit badges. There are more than 135 merit badges, and any Scout, or any qualified Venture or Sea Scout may earn any of these at any time.

Best Practices

Follow these useful steps as you begin your merit badge journey:

Talk to your unit leader about your interests. Read the requirements of the merit badges you think might interest you, and pick one to earn. Your leader will give you the name of a person from a list of counselors. These individuals have special knowledge in their merit badge subjects and are interested in helping you. Click here for a list of merit badges.  

You must have another person with you at each meeting with the merit badge counselor. This person can be your parent or legal guardian, or another registered adult.

Let your Scoutmaster know you are starting a merit badge. Get in touch with the merit badge counselor and explain that you want to earn the badge. The counselor may ask to meet you to explain what is expected and to start helping you meet the requirements. You should also discuss work you have already started or possibly completed.  Click here for a list of the TroopS Merit Badge Counselors.  

At the first meeting, you and your merit badge counselor will review and may start working on the requirements. In some cases, you may share the work you have already started or completed. Click here for workbooks and requirements.  While this is not an official Scouting America-sponsored page, it is a good resources to obtain workbooks and requirements that would otherwise need to be purchased.  

Ask your counselor to help you learn the things you need to know or do. You should read the merit badge pamphlet on the subject. Many troops, schools, and public libraries have them.

When you are ready, call the counselor again to make an appointment. When you go, take along the things you have made to meet the requirements. If they are too big to move, take pictures or have an adult tell in writing what you have done. The counselor will test you on each requirement to make sure you know your stuff and have done or can do the things required.

When the counselor is satisfied you have met each requirement, he or she will sign your application. Give the signed application to your unit leader so your merit badge emblem can be secured for you. Place your blue card in your binder.  You'll receive your patch at the next Court of Honor!  Sew your badge onto your sash!

Must-know Information

You are expected to meet the requirements as they are stated—no more and no less. You must do exactly what is stated in the requirements. If it says “show or demonstrate,” that is what you must do. Just telling about it isn’t enough. The same thing holds true for such words as “make,” “list,” “in the field,” and “collect,” “identify,” and “label.”

The requirements listed below are the current and official requirements of the Boy Scouts of America. Occasionally, the requirements will not match those in the printed Scout Handbook, the annual Scouts BSA Requirements book, or some merit badge pamphlets because of the timing of their printing schedules.

If a new edition of a merit badge pamphlet is introduced with updated requirements after the Scouts BSA Requirements book has been released, a Scout who is starting the badge may choose to follow either set of requirements until the end of the year. At the start of the new year, Scouts who are beginning must use only the new requirements.

If a Scout has already started working on a merit badge when a new edition of the pamphlet is introduced, they may continue to use the same pamphlet and fulfill the requirements therein to earn the badge. They need not start over again with the new pamphlet and revised requirements.

There is no time limit for starting and completing a merit badge, but all work must be completed by the time a Scout turns 18.