What's The Risk? Owning a yacht

Length decides which rules a yacht falls under, and the line sits at 24 metres. Below it a boat answers to little more than local safety rules. At 24 metres load line length it crosses into a commercial-grade regime inherited from the International Convention on Load Lines of 1966, and the obligations step up again at every threshold above that. This report measures cost, law, tax, insurance and liability separately at each of four tiers, because the answer to the question on the cover is different at every one.

Running cost is the figure buyers most often set too low. The trade's rule of thumb puts it at 10 to 15 per cent of purchase value a year, so a EUR 20 million yacht consumes EUR 2 to 3 million annually with crew the largest single line, and the ratio drifts to between 12 and 20 per cent for hulls over 40 metres or older than seven years. The asset beneath that spending falls roughly 15 to 20 per cent on delivery and reaches 40 to 60 per cent of its original price by year ten. Import VAT on a EUR 4 million vessel delivered in the EU comes to EUR 800,000 in France, EUR 840,000 in Spain and EUR 880,000 in Italy.

Structure and flag now carry consequences that reach well past tax. The 58.5 metre Phi, worth about GBP 38 million, was detained in London on 28 March 2022 and the UK Supreme Court upheld that detention on 29 July 2025, although its owner was never designated. Registration itself is inexpensive at every size, with the Cayman Islands Shipping Registry charging US$1,750 for pleasure vessels up to 400 GT, so the choice of register turns on European access, crew rules and port state control record rather than on fees. Exit runs longer than most plans allow: superyachts sold in 2025 spent an average of 487 days on the brokerage market, against a standard MYBA central agency commission of 10 per cent of the gross sale price.

An owner weighing two adjacent sizes can read both tiers and compare them line by line, because every band is put to the same ten questions in the same order: definition and market, cost to buy, cost to maintain, economic and tax structures, legal pitfalls, insurance, security and safety, energy and decarbonisation, maritime law, and selling and exit. Advisers get the due-diligence sequence in full, the eight gates run before money moves, from the title and maritime-lien search through VAT status, flag and registry checks, the build contract, crew contracts under the MLC, sanctions and beneficial-ownership screening, and escrow at completion. Sixty one pages, fourteen sections, a glossary of the technical and legal terms, and a numbered citation on every figure.