The article is devoted to the assessment of the transport capabilities of inland waterways on the example of the Siberian region. As the main indicator of this assessment, the authors propose the product of the coefficient of the class of the depth of the ship's course of the river for the period of its operation. The introduction contains the normative documents on the basis of which the proposed methodology is based. It is proposed to calculate the resource of rivers according to two options: in the first – the guaranteed depth of the ship's course is used, in the second - the change in the class of the depth of the ship's course of the river during the entire navigation is taken into account. Based on the proposed methodology, calculations of the resources of the four main Siberian rivers were made. Thanks to this indicator, it became possible to calculate and compare the resources of rivers with different periods of operation and different depths of the ship's course. The Lena River has the least resource in the region, since its upper reaches are sharply limited by the depth of the ship's passage, and the lower reaches by the period of operation.