Forty thousand. That is roughly how many boats sit on waiting lists for a permanent berth along the French coast, and it is the number that should reset your expectations before you read another word. A permanent annual berth in France is not something you buy on a Tuesday. On the Mediterranean coast the queues run from two years to nine, and in the most sought-after harbours people quietly admit the realistic wait is "indefinite".
I have a permanent place on the Atlantic coast. It took me fourteen months and three rejections to get it, and I got lucky. Here is how the system actually works, what it costs, and the routes that get you a berth before your boat dies of old age.
Why the queue is so long
French marinas were largely built in the 1960s and 70s and they are full. Annual contract holders rarely leave, because their own berth is worth more held than released, so turnover is tiny. Demand keeps climbing as boats get wider and the supply of slots does not.
The result: most ports operate a waiting list, you pay a small annual fee to stay on it, and you wait. Larger berths for boats over 12 metres move slowest of all. If anyone offers you an instant annual place at a glamorous Riviera port for the standard tariff, be suspicious. The honest harbours tell you the wait up front.
The thing nobody warns foreign buyers about
A berth almost never transfers with the boat. When you buy a French boat that "comes with a place at the marina", read the contract twice, because in most ports the berth reverts to the next person on the waiting list the moment the boat is sold. The seller's place is not theirs to give you.
There are exceptions. Some private and semi-private marinas, especially on the Cote d'Azur, sell long leases (a garantie d'usage or amodiation) running 6 to 7 years, and a few up to 40 years. Those you can buy and resell, and they trade like property. But the standard municipal annual berth does not work that way, and assuming it does is how foreigners end up boat-rich and berth-homeless.
I learned this watching a Dutch couple buy a lovely Bavaria in Antibes, complete with what they thought was a berth. It was not. They spent their first French summer paying nightly visitor rates while hunting for a home port.
What a permanent berth actually costs
Annual berth fees depend on length, region and prestige far more than on the quality of the pontoon. Some real 2025-2026 figures for a 12-metre boat:
- a typical French Mediterranean annual berth runs around 5,159 euros
- Nice charges roughly 7,410 euros a year for 12 metres
- Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat, the most exclusive in the surveys, around 9,879 euros
Move off the glamour coast and the picture softens fast. An afloat berth at Port Napoleon near Marseille is about 3,150 euros a year, and a 10-metre sailboat across French ports generally falls between 2,235 and 2,856 euros a year. On the Atlantic, Port Medoc near the Gironde lists annual moorings around 2,163 euros.
Water and electricity are usually metered on top, not included. Budget for that separately, especially if you intend to live aboard or run heating.
My blunt opinion: at close to 10,000 euros a year for a 12-metre berth at Cap Ferrat, you are paying for the postcode, not the sailing. The water off Saint-Florent is just as blue from a berth that costs a third as much. If you want to know why the August scramble is even worse, the piece on finding a French Riviera berth in August is sobering reading.
The five routes that actually get you a berth
After enough conversations with capitaineries, these are the routes that work, ranked by how realistic they are for a foreigner.
Join the waiting list early and in several ports at once. There is usually a small annual fee to hold your place. Do this the day you decide on a region, not the day you buy the boat. The list is the long game, and it is the only honest free route.
Buy a transferable lease (garantie d'usage / amodiation). On parts of the Med you can purchase a berth lease through brokers. Expensive, but it is the one route that gives near-certainty, and you can sell it again later. Treat it as a property purchase, with its own due diligence.
Take a dry-stack or port a sec place. Boats up to around 12 metres can be stored ashore and launched on demand. Far shorter queues, often a fraction of the afloat cost, and your hull stays cleaner. The trade-off is you cannot live aboard and you book a launch in advance.
Look at newer or less fashionable harbours. The Atlantic, Brittany and the Languedoc coast have shorter lists than the Cote d'Azur. I got my Atlantic berth precisely because I was willing to be 40 minutes from the "good" port.
Sublet or take an absent owner's place. Some ports allow a holder who is away to sublet through the capitainerie. It is not permanent, but it bridges you while you wait, and it is legitimate when done through the office rather than a back-room deal.
How to actually apply, step by step
Getting on a list is more bureaucratic than it should be, and foreigners trip over the same details every time. Most capitaineries want the same things: a completed application form, proof of the boat's dimensions (length and beam decide your band and your fee), proof of insurance, and sometimes proof of ownership. If you have not yet bought the boat, many ports will still list you with your intended size, which is exactly why you apply early.
Three things that smooth it for a foreign applicant. First, do it in writing by email so you have a dated record of your place in the queue, because verbal promises evaporate when staff change. Second, ask explicitly whether the annual holding fee secures your position and what happens if you decline the first berth offered (in some ports a refusal sends you back down the list). Third, give a reliable French phone number or an address where you genuinely receive post, because the offer, when it finally comes, may give you days rather than weeks to accept.
I keep a spreadsheet of every list I am on, the date I joined, and the annual fee, and I email each port every spring to confirm I am still on it. Twice that email has flushed out an admin error that would have quietly dropped me.
Dry stack: the route I would push hardest
If your boat is under about 12 metres, dry stacking deserves a serious look before you resign yourself to a decade on an afloat list. The boat lives ashore, often in a stacked rack or on hardstanding, and the operator launches her when you call ahead. Queues are far shorter than for afloat berths, the annual cost can undercut a comparable afloat place, and your antifoul lasts because the hull is out of the water between outings.
Real numbers help: an 8-metre boat in dry storage runs around 3,052 euros a year at Paimpol in Brittany, 3,080 at Leucate, or 2,863 at Soubise on the Atlantic, with handling included in those packages. Port Napoleon near Marseille lists an ashore option from around 1,675 euros a year. The trade-off is real: you book a launch in advance, you cannot sleep aboard between trips, and spontaneous evening sails are off the menu. For a weekend cruiser, that is a price worth paying to skip a six-year queue.
Choosing the region before the port
Where you base the boat shapes everything else, from the queue length to the winter routine. If you have not settled on a coast, weigh it against how you intend to overwinter. Leaving her in the water all season has different demands from hauling out, and I have set out both in the guides to leaving your boat afloat in France over winter and wintering ashore in France. A berth in a port that also has a good yard on site is worth more than a slightly cheaper one with nowhere to lift out.
What I would do today
If I were starting again as a foreigner with no berth, I would put my name on three or four waiting lists within a week of choosing my region, take a dry-stack or an Atlantic afloat place as my bridge, and treat any Riviera berth as a luxury to grow into, not a starting point. The boat can wait in dry stack for years quite happily. Your patience, less so.
Permanent berths in France reward the people who started queuing before they needed one. Start now, even if you have not yet bought the boat.
