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By Tim Sprinkle
Feb 03, 2026
There is no doubt that bungee jumping is an extreme activity – diving off a bridge or structure secured by what looks like a rubber band does not seem reasonable to many. However, despite this fact, it is also one of the most popular and fastest growing activities in the world. Millions of people have taken the plunge since bungee jumping launched as a commercial industry in the 1980s, and the market is on track to reach $3.6 billion in revenue by 2033 according to HTF Market Intelligence.
Despite this growth, bungee jumping has existed in a strange space for the last few decades: globally popular but only locally regulated. The activity originally took off in New Zealand, North America, Europe, and elsewhere, with each region developing its own techniques, equipment preferences, safety philosophies, and operational expectations. What never existed was a single, international, consensus-based standard that brought all of that together.
That has now changed thanks to ASTM International’s committee amusement rides and devices (F24), which recently approved the first international standard for bungee jumping sites, the standard practice for bungee jumping (F3785). Now bungee designers, manufacturers, operators, and regulators have established criteria for the design, manufacture, installation, operation, maintenance, auditing, and modification of safe bungee jumping operations.
As the standard states: “There are two fundamental principles that underline and shape this practice and shall be considered by the designer/engineers, manufacturers, and operators of bungee jumping equipment, systems, and procedures and shall be applied whenever the benefit exceeds the inherent risks. These are the principles of competence and redundancy.”
In this context, competence applies to the people using bungee jump equipment and their ability to perform desired tasks in the prescribed manner, while redundancy refers to the potential for component failure and the ability of a secondary component to take over and prevent an accident.
“One of our goals with this was to have a standard that, if bungee jumping companies or entrepreneurs would like to open up a bungee jumping site, particularly in North America, this clears the way for them to work with the engineers and the regulators,” says Mike Teske, F24 task group leader and senior technical and sales representative with Cimolai Technology.
The existing regulatory uncertainty has had real consequences, he adds. While bungee jumping has thrived in places like New Zealand and Asia, in North America, the activity has stalled. “The bungee jumping industry in North America started up years ago, grew a little bit, and then it kind of fizzled out,” he explains. The creators of this standard hope to reverse this trend.
The effort to create and adopt F3785 was seven years in the making and brought together an international coalition of bungee industry professionals from as far away as Australia, New Zealand, Central America, Bali, and Japan, all committed to reshaping how the industry operates, regulates itself, and maintains public trust. The group was uniquely open in sharing intellectual property, Teske says, including detailed discussions around equipment testing, storage, monitoring, and operational procedures. The result is a standard that offers not a prescriptive checklist, but a flexible framework meant to accommodate the diversity of bungee jumping operations worldwide.
“There’s never been an international standard for bungee jumping before,” says task group member Nick Steers, a Quebec-based freeride ski and bungee jumping professional who is also the co-founder of The Great Bungee Company. “There have been many different regional standards, national standards, and association-based standards, but there’s never been an international standard in the sense that there was consensus.”
That fragmentation dates back to bungee jumping’s origins. Early pioneers in the U.K., New Zealand, North America, and Europe all took inspiration from the same televised stunts, but built their businesses independently.
“Everyone drew their own inspiration from those early bungee jumping stunts to create companies and to create an industry within their own region,” Steers says. “With those early pioneers came their own regional standards, views on safety, and interpretations of what best practices were.”
With this history in mind, the committee’s hope for this new standard has less to do with regulators and more to do with perception. The goal is that, as the standard becomes known and bungee jumping sites are audited to be in compliance, it will be like any other certification: a recognized credential.
“When you go to a mechanic shop and it says that I’m an ASE certified mechanic, you feel good,” Teske says. “You feel like they’ve taken the time to validate their experience.” The same can apply to bungee jumpers standing on a platform for the first time. “It will give people a sense of confidence.”
Even before widespread adoption, the standard has triggered new activity in bungee circles. A new industry group called the International Bungee Association recently launched with the goal of providing training, education, and even audit support for operators looking to align with F3785.
The next step is getting the word out and putting the standard to test in the real world.
“Every standard can be improved,” Teske says, “and time will tell what’s not clear or needs to be changed. For now, we’re glad to have this standard out on the water, and the sails up, and it’s on its way. We're very proud to have reached this point.” ●
Tim Sprinkle is a freelance writer based in Colorado Springs, CO. He has written for Yahoo, The Street, and other websites.
