I spent the winter of 2024 doing sums on the back of a chart in a Port-Vendres cafe, trying to work out whether I should formally import my own boat into France or keep limping along on temporary admission. The short version: importing made sense for me, but only because I had already decided to live aboard half the year and I was sick of the clock-watching. For a lot of visitors it is the wrong move. Let me walk you through the numbers I used.
What importing actually means
There are two separate things people muddle together. One is the customs status of the boat: has EU import VAT been paid on it, yes or no. The other is the flag: which country the boat is registered in. You can import a boat into the EU (pay the VAT) and keep it on a foreign register. You can also switch to the French flag without that having anything to do with VAT. Two levers, pulled separately.
Importing in the customs sense means clearing the boat into free circulation in the EU and paying French import VAT on it. Once that is done, the boat is "Union goods" and can stay in EU waters forever with no time limit. That is the thing you are buying.
The VAT bill
Standard French import VAT is 20%, charged on the customs value of the boat plus any duty. For a yacht arriving from a non-EU country, customs duty on a sailing or motor yacht is typically 1.7% of the value, so the 20% VAT is applied on top of value plus that small duty. On a boat valued at 100,000 euros that is roughly 1,700 euros of duty and then 20,400 euros of VAT, call it 22,100 euros all in before any broker fees.
That number is the whole ball game. If your boat is worth 30,000 euros the VAT hit is around 6,000 and importing is an easy decision. If it is worth 250,000 the VAT alone is over 50,000 and you will think very hard about alternatives.
The customs value is not the same as what you paid years ago. For a used boat, French customs will look at a realistic current market value, and they can ask for a survey or a broker's valuation to back it up. Honest depreciation is your friend here. A tired 1998 cruiser does not get valued like a showroom yacht.
One thing worth understanding before you import: a fair valuation rests on the boat's actual condition, so the same survey that protects you when you buy also helps you argue the customs value down. If you are buying and importing in one go, get a proper inspection done. My guide to 10 hull inspection points when buying a used sailboat is a decent starting list, and the resulting report doubles as evidence of value for the douanes.
Who can avoid the VAT entirely
If the boat already has EU VAT-paid status, you do not pay it again. A British boat that was physically in the EU at the end of the Brexit transition (31 December 2020) and has paperwork to prove it usually kept its EU VAT-paid status. If yours did, you have nothing to import in the VAT sense, and your only question is the flag. Dig out the original invoice or the proof of where the boat was sitting on that date before you spend a penny on a broker. I cover how to evidence this in the piece on VAT status of a boat in EU waters.
If your boat is non-EU and you are a non-EU resident just visiting, you may not need to import at all, because temporary admission lets you cruise for 18 months VAT-free. Whether to import or keep resetting that clock is a genuine fork in the road, and I go into it in keeping a non-EU boat in France beyond 18 months.
The flag question
Switching to the French flag is "francisation". You do not have to do it just because you import the boat, and most foreign owners keep their existing register. A UK Small Ships Register entry costs 35 pounds for five years, which is hard to beat, and there is no compelling reason to abandon it unless you become a French resident and want a French-flagged boat for clarity.
If you do francise, be ready for a catch that surprises people. France charges an annual tax on pleasure craft (the TAEMUP, which replaced the old droit de francisation in 2022). It scales with hull length and engine power, kicks in properly above 7 metres, and bites hardest on big engines. A modest cruiser pays little, a fast 12-metre motor yacht can pay several hundred to over a thousand euros a year. There is also a sting in the tail for foreign residents: if you live in France but keep a foreign-flagged boat, France can levy a "droit de passeport" calculated the same way, so flagging out of France does not always dodge the charge.
To francise a foreign boat you must first get a deletion certificate (a "radiation") from your old register proving the boat has been struck off there. No deletion, no French flag. Plan that sequence carefully, because for a few weeks the boat sits between two registers, and you do not want to be sailing in that gap with no valid registration to show a patrol.
The French registration itself is not expensive to set up. Agents who handle the paperwork advertise francisation from around 129 euros, and the process usually runs two to four weeks once the deletion certificate is in hand. The recurring annual tax, not the one-off setup, is the cost that catches people out, so do that sum before you commit. I go through the foreigner's side of the process in detail in the guide to French boat registration for foreign owners.
When importing is worth it
Run this checklist, which is roughly the one I used:
- You intend to keep the boat in the EU for years, not seasons. Importing only pays off over time.
- The VAT bill is a tolerable fraction of the boat's value. On a sub-50,000-euro boat it usually is.
- You are tired of the 18-month temporary admission cycle, or you are becoming an EU resident and lose the right to use TA at all.
- You want to sell the boat one day inside the EU. EU VAT-paid status makes a boat far easier to sell to European buyers and protects the price.
And when it is not worth it: short visits, high-value boats where the VAT is brutal, or any situation where you can legitimately keep resetting temporary admission with the odd hop to a non-EU port.
Get a broker for the paperwork
I did the homework myself but paid a customs agent to file the import declaration, because getting the customs value and the commodity code right matters and the douanes do not hand out second chances cheaply. Reckon on a few hundred euros for an agent on a straightforward private import. Cheap insurance against a five-figure mistake.
The boat I almost overpaid VAT on turned out to have been in Greece on the cutoff date, so it kept EU status and I imported nothing at all. Check that first. It is the single most valuable hour you will spend.
