Foreign-Flagged Yachts in Greek Waters

Why the question arises at all

A guest may find the yacht they want, on a broker’s list, in the right week, and still be told it may not begin its charter in Greece. The reason is a licensing rule, and no amount of money changes it. It is the single most useful thing to understand about chartering in Greek waters.

Greece regulates who may take paying guests on a yacht inside its own waters. The governing statute is Law 4926/2022, “Modernisation of the Institutional Framework for the Activity of Pleasure Yachts and Tourist Day-Boats”, published in the Government Gazette on 20 April 2022. It replaced the framework in Law 4256/2014, which had been in force for the previous 8 years.

A register sits underneath the law. The electronic register of professional pleasure craft, held by the Greek revenue authority, records the vessels licensed to trade in Greek waters. A yacht that is not correctly in the register, and has no permission standing in its place, is not chartering correctly.

The two routes

A foreign-flagged commercial yacht has two ways to take a charter that starts or ends in Greece.

The first is the full Greek charter licence. The yacht is entered in the register and licensed to trade in Greek waters for a term of several years. The condition that shapes everything else is presence: the owner must be established in Greece. In practice that means appointing a Greek charter management company, holding a Greek tax number and running the yacht’s Greek business through it. Yachts that intend to work Greek waters season after season take this route.

The second is the Specified Period Charter Licence. It is the route for a yacht that does not hold the full licence and does not want a permanent Greek establishment. It is temporary, it is issued charter by charter, and it is narrow.

Who qualifies for the Specified Period Charter Licence

Article 8 of the law sets the conditions, and all of them must hold.

• The yacht is not entered in the Greek e-Register and is not under the Greek flag. The route exists for yachts outside the Greek licensed fleet. A yacht that already holds the full licence uses that instead.
• Its length overall exceeds 35 metres. Length overall is the full length of the hull. It is a different measure from registered length, the two differ on many yachts, and the difference has decided eligibility more than once.
• Its hull is steel, plastic or aluminium. A wooden hull is excluded, which removes traditional vessels from this route entirely.

Apart from excluding the Greek flag, the route does not look at the flag. Commercial yachts under EU and non-EU flags are eligible on the same conditions.

For a guest, the consequence is plain. A foreign-flagged yacht of 35 metres or less with no full Greek licence has no route to a Greek embarkation, and asking does not change that.

The 21 days

The Specified Period Charter Licence is issued electronically through the government’s e-Charter Permission platform. Article 8 caps it at 21 days per calendar year, extendable by up to 7 more.

Two details make that limit tighter than it first reads.

First, a separate licence is issued for each charter contract. The 21 days, plus the extension, may be spread across more than one charter, but each charter needs its own permission.

Second, a port authority approves the permission. It is the port authority of the place where the yacht is delivered and the guests embark, or the nearest port authority where delivery is abroad.

The arithmetic explains a season. A 45-metre yacht on this route can offer roughly three weeks of charters starting in Greece in a year, and no more. So the yachts a broker can start in Athens or Corfu in August are a much smaller set than the yachts cruising Greece in August.

What has to be settled before the licence is issued

The conditions are cumulative: every one of them must be met.

1. A Greek tax identification number (AFM) for the owner, from the competent tax office.
2. A signed charter agreement. The permission attaches to an actual contract, never to an intention.
3. The special cruising tax, TEPADAH or TEPADAH Plus, paid in full.
4. Payment in advance of 70% of the VAT to the Greek State.
5. No permanent establishment in Greece on the owner’s part. An owner who has one is pointed back to the full licence route.
6. A Foreign Commercial Yacht Inspection Certificate (PEXEPA), required for vessels under 500 GT. GT, gross tonnage, measures a vessel’s enclosed volume.

The cruising tax

TEPADAH is a special cruising tax introduced by Law 4926/2022 and implemented on 29 December 2023. It is calculated per charter, using formulas set out in article 9 of the law. The inputs are the yacht’s length overall, its gross tonnage and the number of days it spends in Greek territorial waters. The result is a base charge of €500 plus a daily rate that rises with the size of the vessel.

The liability sits with the shipowner or the disponent owner, meaning the party that runs the yacht commercially without owning it. Payment is made through a unique code issued on the e-Charter Permission platform, and the revenue is credited to the Hellenic Coast Guard.

There are two versions of the tax, and which one applies depends on where the charter begins and ends. TEPADAH applies where a charter both starts and ends in Greece. TEPADAH Plus applies where a charter starts or ends outside Greece, including a charter that runs entirely outside Greek waters, and it is substantially larger.

The two versions are far apart. The Greek professional yachting bodies published worked examples in 2024 for a 40-metre yacht of 494 GT. They give TEPADAH of €815 over 7 days and €1,130 over 14. On the same yacht, TEPADAH Plus comes to €6,415 over 7 days and €12,330 over 14. The figures illustrate the formula and are not a tariff, and the arithmetic is done per charter.

VAT on the charter

Greek VAT on a crewed charter is charged at a reduced rate of 13%. The rate applies to vessels with crew carrying passengers by sea, under Law 5073/2023, and has been in force since 11 December 2023.

The rate a guest is invoiced is usually lower. Under Decree (POL.) 1156/1997 the taxable value is reduced according to the yacht’s certificate of compliance. A yacht certified for unlimited navigation gets a 60% reduction, which brings the effective rate to 5.2%. A yacht with navigational limitations gets 50%, which brings it to 6.5%. Charters that do not meet the conditions for the reduced treatment are taxed at the standard rate.

In practice, the VAT line on a Greek charter quote depends on the individual yacht’s certificate, whatever the country. Two yachts on the same itinerary in the same week can carry different rates, and the quote should state which applies.

What this means when choosing a yacht

The owner must comply with the rules, and the guest must plan around them. Four questions settle it early.

1. Where does this charter start and end? A Greek embarkation is the trigger for everything above. An itinerary that touches Greece but begins elsewhere is a different case.
2. Does the yacht hold a full Greek charter licence, or is it on a specified-period permission? The answer tells you whether the dates are really open.
3. If it is on a specified-period permission, how much of the 21 days is already committed? A yacht with 4 days left cannot take a week.
4. What VAT rate applies to this yacht, and on what certificate? The rate belongs on the quote, in writing.

Ask these questions before you settle on a yacht. The rules do not bend, and a broker who knows them says so early.