In this paper, we develop a thorough analysis of the boundedness properties of the maximal operator for the Bochner-Riesz means related to the Fourier-Bessel expansions. For this operator, we study weighted and unweighted inequalities in the spaces L p ((0, 1), x 2ν+1 dx). Moreover, weak and restricted weak type inequalities are obtained for the critical values of p. As a consequence, we deduce the almost everywhere pointwise convergence of these means.