A Dutch skipper next to us in Saint-Malo last June had no French flag flying and was utterly unbothered. "Forty years, never had a problem," he said, opening a beer. He is probably right that nobody will fine him. He is also, technically, getting it wrong, and there is one situation where it stops being a harmless habit.
Let me untangle what the courtesy flag actually is, what the yellow Q flag is, and where the two get muddled.
What a courtesy flag is, and what it is not
The courtesy flag is the maritime national flag (the ensign) of the country you are visiting, flown small, from your boat, as a gesture of respect to the host nation. For France that is the Tricolore in its maritime proportions. It is not your ensign and it does not replace your ensign. Your own Red Ensign, German, Dutch or whatever you fly stays at the stern. The French courtesy flag goes up high.
There is no single international law that says you must fly one. Etiquette is custom, and customs differ port to port. But "no law" is doing a lot of work in that sentence, because customs clearance is a different matter, and that is where the yellow flag comes in.
The Q flag is the one that matters legally
The Q flag is plain yellow. It means "my vessel is healthy and I request free pratique", which in plain English is "I have arrived from outside and I want to be cleared in." Originally a quarantine signal, today it is the standard way of saying you have crossed a border and need clearance.
If you are arriving in France from a non-EU country, the UK since Brexit being the obvious case, you fly the Q flag on entering French territorial waters and keep it up until customs and immigration have cleared you. Only then does the Q come down and the French courtesy flag go up. This sequence is not just etiquette: it is part of the formal arrival process. The wider procedure is in our guide to clearing customs when you arrive in France by boat, and UK skippers should also read bringing a uk flagged boat to France after Brexit, because the clearance step is new for you since 2021.
If you are arriving from within the EU, say a German boat coasting down from Belgium, there is no border to clear and no Q flag needed. You just fly the French courtesy flag once you are in French waters.
Where the flag goes
Get the position right and you look like you know what you are doing.
- On a yacht with spreaders, the courtesy flag (or the Q) flies at the starboard spreader.
- If you have more than one mast, use the starboard spreader of the forward mast.
- The starboard spreader is the courtesy position. Your own club burgee or other signals go to port.
Two hard rules people break. Never fly your own ensign above a courtesy flag on the same halyard, and never fly the Q flag and the courtesy flag stacked one above the other. While you are still flying Q (not yet cleared), the French flag stays in the locker. The moment you are cleared, swap them. One up, one down, never both.
A worn, sun-bleached rag of a courtesy flag is considered worse manners than no flag at all. If yours has gone pink and frayed, replace it. A decent 30 by 45 centimetre French courtesy flag costs around 8 to 15 euros in any French chandlery, and you will find them everywhere from Dunkirk to Menton.
Size matters in one direction only: the courtesy flag should never be larger than your own national ensign. A rough guide many cruisers use is about 1 centimetre of flag length per metre of overall length, so a 10-metre boat looks right with a flag around 30 centimetres on the fly. Bigger than your ensign reads as showing off, and on a small boat an oversized Tricolore just looks comic.
Does anyone actually enforce it?
Honest answer: in France, almost never for the courtesy flag itself. I have cruised the Channel coast, Brittany and the Med over many seasons and never once been challenged for a missing or tatty Tricolore. France is relaxed about it compared with, say, parts of the Caribbean where officials have been known to make life difficult.
The Q flag is different. If you arrive from the UK and skip the clearance process, the flag is the least of your worries; you have missed a legal step. The Gendarmerie Maritime do board visiting boats, politely and methodically, and "I didn't clear in" is the wrong answer to give them. What they check is covered in carrying your boat documents in France.
So my practical line is this. The courtesy flag is good manners and cheap, so just fly one. The Q flag is part of arriving legally from outside the EU, so treat it as procedure, not decoration.
A few honest opinions
I fly a French courtesy flag the whole time I am in French waters, and I fly it clean. Partly because it is correct, mostly because it costs almost nothing and it signals to the harbourmaster and the boat next door that you respect where you are. In a busy August port that small thing buys goodwill, and goodwill gets you a raft-up spot and a friendly hand with lines.
I have also seen the flip side. A British boat in Audierne a couple of summers back was flying an enormous Tricolore, larger than its own ensign, which is its own small breach of etiquette: the courtesy flag should be modest, never bigger than your national ensign. The harbourmaster found it funny rather than offensive, but it marked the crew out as newcomers.
Practical flag-locker tips for a French cruise
A few things I have learned the slow way, mostly by getting them slightly wrong.
Buy your French courtesy flag in France, not before you leave home. They are cheaper in any French chandlery (8 to 15 euros), the proportions are correct, and you avoid the slightly off versions that turn up on UK shelves. While you are at it, buy two, because UV at sea destroys flags faster than you expect. A polyester courtesy flag flown all season on a Med cruise will be visibly faded by September.
If you are cruising the Channel Islands on the way south, remember they are not France. Jersey and Guernsey are Crown Dependencies with their own flags, and if you call there before crossing to Saint-Malo you fly their courtesy flag, then swap to the French Tricolore once you are in French waters. It is a small thing, but it is the sort of detail that marks an experienced skipper. The route itself is covered in our notes on Channel Islands to Saint-Malo.
Take the courtesy flag down at night in harbour if you are being properly traditional, along with your ensign, and hoist it again at 0800. In practice most cruisers leave the courtesy flag up around the clock and only strike the ensign, which nobody minds. Etiquette purists will tut; the harbourmaster will not.
Lastly, do not improvise a courtesy flag from a beach towel or a child's flag if you forget one. It looks worse than nothing. If you genuinely have no French flag, fly none until you can buy one ashore, which on the French coast is never more than a marina away.
The takeaway
Fly the French courtesy flag at the starboard spreader, keep it small (never bigger than your own ensign) and keep it clean. If you have come from outside the EU, fly the yellow Q flag first and clear in before you swap. Carry a spare flag, buy it in France, and do not stack the Q and the Tricolore on the same halyard. Beyond that, France will not lose sleep over your flag locker, and neither should you.
