I keep a green folder. Not a glamorous piece of kit, but it has saved more sailing days than any gadget aboard. Inside it lives every document a French official, marina or insurer has ever asked me for, in the order they tend to ask. This article is that folder, written out, so you can build your own over the winter instead of assembling it in a panic at a fuel berth.
I have ordered it the way the season unfolds: the documents that prove who you and the boat are, the licences that let you operate, the money paperwork, and the deadlines that catch people out. Tick each one off before launch and the admin stops being a drag on the cruise.
The boat's identity documents
These are the papers that say the boat is legitimately yours and legitimately afloat. The Gendarmerie Maritime can ask for them, so they go in the front of the folder.
- Registration document, in the boat's name, matching the hull and the owner.
- Bill of sale or proof of ownership, especially if the registration is recent.
- Original ship's papers, not just photographs, because an officer may want the original.
If you are still sorting the boat's registration as a foreign owner, settle that well before you cross, because it is slow to fix from abroad.
One detail worth a second thought: the name on the registration should match the person who will be answering questions at the dock. A boat owned through a company, or recently bought and not yet re-registered, invites a longer conversation. If there is any mismatch between the ownership document and who is actually aboard, carry the paperwork that bridges it, an authority-to-use letter or the company's details, so the gap does not look like something to hide.
Proof of VAT or temporary admission
This is the document people most often lack and most often get asked for. An EU-flagged boat needs evidence of its VAT-paid status. A non-EU-flagged boat relies instead on the temporary admission relief, which allows use in EU waters for up to 18 months within a two-year period before VAT becomes payable.
Carry the proof aboard, not in a drawer at home. Acceptable evidence and the way customs reads it is exactly what I covered in the VAT status of a boat in EU waters; print the relevant pages and keep dated records of when the boat entered and left EU waters so the 18-month clock is never in dispute.
Insurance
Third-party liability cover is effectively required to take a berth in most French marinas, so a current certificate is not optional. Two things to check before the season, not during a claim:
- The geographic limit genuinely includes your French cruising area and laid-up location.
- The certificate is in English and French if possible, or at least clearly states the cover, because a capitainerie may want to read it.
The clauses that quietly void cover are the geographic limit and the use conditions, which I went through in insurance for a foreign-flagged boat cruising France. Sort any gaps over winter.
Licences and competence
Now the papers that let you operate the boat and its equipment.
- Skipper competence certificate. Carry it; France recognises the ICC and common national certificates, and an officer may ask.
- Radio operator certificate. For international waters an operator qualification such as the CRR is expected, not just a domestic permit.
- Ship radio licence and a valid MMSI for your VHF, AIS, EPIRB and radar. France, with Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, expects ATIS capability in VHF transmissions.
The radio paperwork is cheap but slow to arrange, so it belongs firmly in the winter pile, not the spring scramble. Keep the operator certificate and the station licence together, because they answer different questions: one proves the person may transmit, the other proves the equipment is registered. An officer who asks about the radio will often want both, and producing only half looks like an oversight even when it is not.
Add the boat's safety-equipment situation to this section too. France enforces its own Division 240 standard in French waters whatever your flag, and the required kit increases with distance from a shelter, with a fixed VHF expected beyond 6 miles. It is not a document as such, but a kit list checked against the rule, kept in the folder, turns a possible inspection into a non-event.
Crew and immigration documents
For the people aboard, particularly non-EU crew since Brexit changed the picture for the British.
- Passports for every crew member, valid well beyond the trip.
- A crew list ready to hand for the arrival declaration.
- An awareness of the 90/180 count for each non-EU person, because the limit is personal, not per-boat.
From 12 October 2025 the EU Entry/Exit System began recording entries and exits biometrically, with full operation due 10 April 2026, so days in France are now logged precisely. The counting itself is laid out in the Schengen 90/180 day rule for boaters, and it is worth each crew member knowing their own running total.
The arrival declaration
Arriving from outside the Schengen area, you file an entry-and-exit border declaration, the formulaire declaratif de controle aux frontieres. France does not require the Q flag unless you have something to declare. With crew details and passport numbers already in the folder this is a few minutes' work; without them it can swallow a morning.
The money deadlines
These do not live in the folder but they belong on the calendar.
- If the boat is French-flagged, the annual francisation and navigation duty (still widely called the DAFN) is due by 31 March for an owner who held the boat on 1 January, or within two months of a new registration. Miss it and a 5% surcharge follows. The duty applies once the hull reaches 7 metres, or below that with an engine of at least 22 administrative horsepower.
- Insurance renewal, set a reminder a month ahead.
- Any berth contract renewal and its deposit terms.
If you are staying long enough that residency or income becomes a question, the stakes rise sharply, and I would read tax residency risk from a long stay in France before a second French winter rather than after.
Keep a running day-count
The one piece of paper I would add to any folder is a simple log: date in, date out, country, with a marina receipt or fuel docket as backup. It serves the Schengen count, it answers any tax-residency question, and it costs nothing but a line a day. Memory is a poor substitute when someone official asks where you spent the year.
Build it cold, use it warm
Everything above can be assembled at a kitchen table in February. The licences, the VAT proof, the insurance check, the tax diary entry, the crew passports. Do that and the live admin of a French season shrinks to one task: the arrival declaration, which takes minutes when the folder is ready.
A word on format. I keep the originals in the physical folder and a complete scanned set on my phone and in cloud storage, because the two fail in different ways. Paper survives a flat battery and no signal; the digital copy survives a soaked folder or a forgetful packing. For the documents an officer may want to see in the original, the paper wins, so do not rely on the phone alone. Update the folder at the start of each season, throw out anything expired, and check the renewal dates while you are at it.
The green folder is not exciting. But the boaters who travel with one spend their calm mornings sailing, and the ones who do not spend them on the dock, hunting for a document that should have been sorted six months earlier.
