The first time a French customs RIB came alongside me off the Iles d'Hyeres, the officer did not ask for my passport. He asked, in slow English, where my fire extinguisher was mounted and whether I had a flotation device for every person aboard. I had the kit. What I did not have, at that moment, was a clear head about which French rule he was quoting. The answer is Division 240, and once you understand how it is built, the whole thing stops feeling like a trap.
Division 240 is the French regulation that lists the safety equipment a pleasure boat under 24 metres must carry at sea. It was last overhauled by a decree of 11 October 2024, published in the Journal Officiel on 30 October 2024, so any older checklist you find online may already be out of date. The logic has not changed, but a few specifics have, and I will flag those as we go.
How the categories work: it is all about the shelter
France does not classify your boat by how far you intend to sail. It classifies you by how far you actually are from an "abri", a shelter. The official definition matters: a shelter is a stretch of coast where any vessel and its crew can reach safety by mooring, beaching or docking, and then leave again without outside help, taking into account the weather of the moment and the boat itself. So a drying harbour you cannot enter at low water in a gale is not your shelter at that instant.
There are four categories, and each one is a Russian doll containing the one below it.
Basique covers navigation up to 2 nautical miles from a shelter. Cotier (coastal) runs from 2 up to 6 miles. Semi-hauturier (semi-offshore) covers 6 up to 60 miles. Hauturier (offshore) applies beyond 60 miles. Coastal kit includes everything in basique, semi-offshore includes everything in coastal, and so on up the ladder. Work out your worst-case distance from shelter for the passage, pick that category, and carry its full list.
What each category actually demands
The basique list is the foundation: a flotation device for every person aboard, a means of bailing or pumping, a fixed point to be towed from and to make fast, a light to signal your position, and an up-to-date means of fixing your position. Since the 2024 update, every person must also have an individual light, useful if you go over the side at night.
Step up to cotier and you add a man-overboard recovery aid such as a horseshoe or ring lifebuoy, a compass, charts of the area, three red hand flares, a fire extinguisher arrangement, and the documents proving your boat and its kit. This is the band most visiting cruisers spend their summers in, hopping between Mediterranean or Atlantic ports a few miles apart.
Semi-hauturier is where the offshore mindset begins. You add a liferaft or, on smaller craft, an approved alternative, a radar reflector, a fixed VHF, a first-aid kit, and parachute rocket flares on top of the hand flares. Hauturier, beyond 60 miles, piles on a registered distress beacon, more pyrotechnics including floating orange smoke signals, and the gear you would expect for genuine ocean work.
I keep a laminated card taped inside a locker that lists my category and its items. It has saved me twice during checks, because I could hand it over instead of rummaging.
A worked example: a typical Riviera day
Say you leave Saint-Raphael to spend the day at the Iles de Lerins off Cannes, about 12 nautical miles along the coast. For most of that run you are within 2 miles of a usable shelter, so much of the passage is technically basique. But there is a stretch crossing the Golfe de la Napoule where, in a fresh onshore breeze, the nearest place you could actually reach and leave again without help is more than 2 miles off. The moment that is true, you are in the cotier band and you must carry the cotier list for the whole outing, not just the exposed bit.
This is the mental shift visitors find hardest. You do not get to switch categories mile by mile. You look at the worst case for the passage as planned, in the weather you actually have, and you equip for that. The official definition of a shelter even bakes in "the meteorological conditions of the moment", which is the regulation's polite way of saying a harbour you cannot enter in the prevailing swell does not count as your shelter while that swell is running. Plan to the conditions, not the chart.
Does it even apply to your foreign boat?
Here is the question every visiting skipper asks, and the honest answer is awkward. The RYA took French legal advice on exactly this and concluded the position "is not entirely clear in law". Division 240 is written for French-flagged boats. As a UK, Dutch, German or US-flagged visitor, your equipment obligations are set in the first instance by your flag state. I dig into that tangle in detail in the guide to whether French rules apply to a foreign boat, and it is worth reading before you assume either way.
The practical line, which both the RYA and most cruising sailors I know take, is simple: make every reasonable effort to meet the French rules for your zone and type of navigation. An inspecting officer on a windy afternoon is not going to debate flag-state conflict of laws with you. He wants to see lifejackets, a means of calling for help, a way to put out a fire, and flares that have not expired. If you carry the cotier or semi-hauturier list, you will satisfy him and you will also be genuinely safer, which is the actual point.
The bits that catch visitors out
Three areas trip up foreign crews more than any other.
Flares come first. France expects them in date, and the disposal rules differ from home. I cover carrying limits and where to hand in old ones in the piece on flares and pyrotechnics in France. Do not arrive with a tube of time-expired rockets and assume nobody checks the stamped date, because they do.
Lifejackets come second. France is specific about buoyancy ratings and, since 2024, about harnesses on certain boats. The detail of what counts and when wearing one is compulsory sits in the lifejacket and harness rules for France. A 50-newton buoyancy aid is not the same thing as a 150-newton lifejacket in the eyes of the regulation.
Radio comes third. A fixed VHF appears in the semi-hauturier list, but carrying the set is only half the story. You need the operator certificate and the boat licence too, and France can ask for both. The full picture is in the VHF licence and MMSI guide.
A fourth, quieter trap is documentation. Division 240 does not only list hardware; it expects you to be able to prove your boat and its kit are what they should be. For a foreign boat that means the registration document, the insurance certificate, and, if you carry a fixed VHF, the ship radio licence. The Gendarmerie Maritime in particular treats missing or mismatched papers as a reason to look harder, so keep them together and accessible rather than buried in a sodden folder under a bunk.
What changed in the 2024 overhaul
The October 2024 decree did not rip up the four-category structure, which is why older guides are not completely useless. What it adjusted were the details inside the categories. The individual light for every person aboard, useful for finding a casualty in the dark, was reinforced across the board. The language around lifejacket standards and around when a harness is expected was tightened, which is why I treat the lifejacket and harness rules for France as essential summer reading rather than a footnote. None of this should alarm a properly found boat, but it does mean a checklist printed before 2024 may quietly miss an item. Pull the current text each spring.
My practical take
Treat Division 240 as a sensible packing list rather than a foreign imposition. If you are coastal-hopping within 6 miles of a port, build to the cotier standard and you are covered for the vast majority of French summer cruising. If you are crossing a bay or running offshore, step up to semi-hauturier before you leave the dock, not when the wind backs and the nearest harbour is 12 miles astern.
The decree changes every few years, so check the current text on the French maritime ministry site before each season rather than trusting a forum post. And keep that laminated card. The officer off Hyeres handed me back my papers in under five minutes, wished me a good cruise, and went looking for someone less prepared.
Sources: Division 240 (decree of 11 October 2024, Ministere de la Mer / mer.gouv.fr); RYA country-specific advice for France (rya.org.uk).
