Typically, commercial fishing businesses incur three major types of costs: fixed or annual costs; which are incurred annually irrespective of whether any fishing activity takes place; variable costs, which are associated with fishing effort (fishing trips); and labor costs for crew, including hired captains. The Northeast Fisheries Science Center collects the variable costs associated with fishing trips on a continuous basis as part of a fisheries observer program. There have been few attempts at establishing a protocol to collect fixed and labor cost data across fisheries. The Social Sciences Branch (SSB) previously collected fixed costs in 2007-2009, but response to the survey was low. The SSB conducted a survey of commercial fishing vessel owners in the New England and Mid-Atlantic states to collect their total fishing costs (fixed, variable and labor costs) for 2011 and 2012. A survey to collect total costs for 2011 was implemented in 2012 and information on 2012 total costs was gathered in a similar 2013 survey effort. For each year, the survey sample was stratified by primary gear type and vessel size. Information for Northeast commercial fishing vessels in the population of interest was pulled from the existing NMFS PERMIT, VTR, and CFDBS databases; this information included vessel owner contact information, vessel characteristics and vessel landings and revenues. Response rates were 30% (437 completed) and 21% (396 completed), respectively. Vessel owner participation in the survey effort was voluntary.