How to Charter a Yacht, from Start to Finish.

Chartering a yacht is simpler than most people expect, though it runs across more stages than the headline price suggests. There's more to it than picking a boat and paying for the week. It's a sequence of decisions, conversations and small calls that, done right, leave you with the right yacht and the right crew tied to your dates, on a contract that protects everyone.

This guide is what we'd take a first-time client through if they sat down across the table from us tomorrow. It runs from the first call through the shortlisting, the contract, the preference sheet, the money, the week itself and disembarkation, with what happens at each stage and where to be careful. Brand new to chartering? Read it top to bottom. Done a charter or two and want to understand the back end better? The middle sections are where the work happens.

A note on scope. We're a Mediterranean crewed charter brokerage, so this guide is built around crewed charters under the MYBA framework, the dominant standard for Med crewed work. Some bareboat structure and Caribbean-specific notes are in our bareboat vs crewed guide and our MYBA vs CYBA comparison if that's where you're heading.

1. The first conversation

Every charter starts with a call or an email, and we'd rather have the call. Ten minutes on the phone tells us more than a long email, and we can usually finish the call with a real shortlist in mind.

What we ask about is short and concrete: how many guests, what dates, where you're thinking of going, the kind of week you have in mind (active and sailing, slow and beach-club, family with kids, a group of friends), and a rough idea of budget. If you don't know your budget yet, that's fine, we'll talk through what the brackets look like and what they buy. If you don't know where you want to go, that's fine too. Most clients narrow that down through the conversation rather than walking in with a fixed answer.

Two things help us a lot if you have them ready: a rough range of charter fee you're comfortable with, and dates with some flexibility around them. Even a one-week window in either direction opens up a lot more yachts at the same budget.

2. The shortlisting

Once we have the brief, we go to the fleet. In any given week there are several hundred yachts available for crewed charter in the Mediterranean, plus the boats that aren't on the public listings, and the job is to filter aggressively down to the four or five that really fit your dates, your group and your priorities.

What we filter on: yacht type (motor, sail, catamaran), size and cabin configuration for your group, the captain and crew's experience, where the boat is positioned for your dates, the owner-spec details (toys on board, jacuzzi or not, the layout of the social spaces), pricing, and our own read on the operator and crew. We know the operators directly, we've been on board many of these boats ourselves, and the rest we know through other brokers and the managers who run them. We visit the main charter shows around the Med every year, MEDYS in Nafplio, EMMYS in Poros, the Croatian Yacht Show, the Cannes Yachting Festival and others.

What you get back is a shortlist of three to five yachts with full presentations: photos, the layout, crew CVs, what's on board, the captain's experience, and the all-in cost for your dates. Our yacht charter broker explainer has more on what we actually do at this stage.

3. Reading the shortlist

You'll get three to five yachts back. By the time the shortlist reaches you, we've already filtered for the things you don't need to weigh up yourself, group size, dates, destination, budget bracket. That work is done before you see anything, and the offers are always yachts we'd book ourselves, with operators we know and trust and crew we've either met or heard good things about.

Open each presentation and look at the photos. See which boats you actually want to be on, because the right one is usually obvious in the first minute.

Once a couple of favourites emerge, the conversation moves to us. What the crew is really like, whether the chef holds up to the CV, anything quirky we've heard about the boat or the season she's having. We know the captains and operators on the boats we shortlist, and that layer of context, the part you don't see in the brochure, is where the decision usually gets made. The brochure shows you the boat; we tell you the rest. Just open the conversation.

If something specific is going to make or break the trip, the watersports kit, a particular event you want to celebrate, kids on board, a dietary thing that needs a serious chef, tell us early and we'll surface it on the shortlist directly.

4. Holding the option and signing the contract

When you've narrowed the shortlist to one (or two, if you want a serious comparison), we put the yacht on a hold while the contract is prepared. The hold is typically 24 to 48 hours and gives you breathing room to make the decision without losing the boat to another booking.

For crewed work in the Mediterranean, the contract is the MYBA Charter Agreement (Mediterranean Yacht Brokers Association, current version MYBA 2025). It's the standard used across most of the serious Med crewed market, and it defines every cost category, the insurance position, the cancellation schedule and the dispute procedure. We've covered what's included under MYBA and the MYBA vs CYBA difference in detail. For smaller charters and bareboat the framework is different, but if you're booking a crewed Med week, MYBA is what you'll be signing.

The deposit at signing is usually 50% of the charter fee. The balance, plus APA and VAT, is typically due 30 to 60 days before your start date, depending on how close to the date you're booking. Cancellation runs on a sliding scale in the MYBA agreement: the closer to the start date you cancel, the higher the percentage retained, up to 100% inside the final window.

5. The preference sheet

After signing, we send you an invite to our app and the preference sheet. It's a detailed form the chef and captain use to provision and shape the week before you arrive. We've written a dedicated guide on the preference sheet, but the short version is that it covers dietary requirements, allergies, drink preferences down to the brands and styles you actually like, special occasions during the week, watersports interests, what to stock in the cabins, and any medical or accessibility needs.

Fill it in properly. The boat is sourcing fresh ingredients, arranging local suppliers and putting things on board specifically for you. A vague preference sheet produces an average week. A precise one produces a week where the right wine is poured at the right moment.

We typically send it about eight weeks out and want it back around four weeks before the charter, which gives the chef time to source what needs sourcing.

6. The money: how the costs actually work

The full cost picture for a Mediterranean crewed charter has four main lines, plus a handful of smaller ones depending on the trip.

The charter fee. This is the headline number that covers the yacht and the crew for the week: wages, the crew's own food and provisions, insurance on the boat, the standard equipment and water toys on board, and the boat's basic consumables. The full MYBA inclusion list covers exactly what's in the fee and what isn't.

VAT. Charged on the charter fee at rates that vary by country and yacht flag. Greece runs between 5.2% and 12% depending on the bracket. Croatia is 13%. Spain and Italy sit around 21 to 22%. France is 20%. The 2026 VAT guide has the full picture.

APA (Advance Provisioning Allowance). The variable-cost budget for the week: fuel, marina fees, provisioning (food and drink on board), port taxes, the bills your captain handles for you, anything that scales with the trip rather than being fixed in the contract. Typically 25 to 35% of the charter fee depending on destination, paid before the charter starts, managed by the captain across the week, reconciled with full receipts at the end, with any unused balance returned. Expect to use most of it. The APA explainer has the mechanics.

Crew gratuity. Expected, not obligatory, at the charterer's discretion. The Mediterranean norm sits around 10 to 15% of the charter fee for good service, with the exceptional end going higher. Paid in cash or by bank transfer to the captain at the end of the week, who distributes it among the crew.

Other lines worth knowing about. Delivery or repositioning fees if the yacht needs to move to your embarkation port (charged at fuel cost plus crew time, with VAT on top). Local taxes and port fees in some destinations. Optional extras like external instructors, specialist suppliers, or one-off events you might want during the week.

Our budget guide walks through a realistic budget process before you start looking at yachts.

7. The weeks before the charter

Between signing and embarkation, the captain takes over a meaningful share of the work. We introduce you to him by email or WhatsApp three to four weeks before the start date, and you'll start a conversation about the itinerary together.

Itineraries are planned in advance, broker, client and captain together, mapped out across the week with the right anchorages, the right restaurants and the right rhythm. It's not a rigid schedule, more of a working plan. The captain can and will adjust last-minute for weather, sea state or your preferences once you're on board, which is the whole point of being on a yacht rather than in a fixed hotel.

A few days before the charter, the captain sends you boarding instructions: where to meet, what time, what to bring. By then the plan is set, the boat is provisioned and the cabins are turned down. Almost everything is in place.

8. Embarkation: the noon-to-noon handover

MYBA charters run noon to noon. You embark at midday on the first day of the contract, and you disembark at midday on the last day. No mandatory return to the home marina the night before, no early-morning sprint to clear the boat.

When you arrive at the marina, the captain meets you on the passerelle, takes you through the safety briefing, walks you around the boat, and introduces you to the crew. There's usually a welcome drink and a light lunch on board while your luggage is taken to the cabins. By early afternoon you're moving, either to your first anchorage or for a swim stop on the way there. The afternoon belongs to the boat already.

A small but important note: noon embarkation means noon. Some clients try to board at nine in the morning thinking they're saving themselves time. The crew is doing the final provisioning and the safety walkthrough until eleven. If you arrive too early you'll be waiting in the marina café, not on board. Plan around noon.

9. The week itself

How a week runs depends on the group, the destination, the weather, and what you actually want. There's no template. But a few things are universal across crewed Med charters.

The crew lives on board, so there's continuous service across the day. Breakfast is usually a long affair on the aft deck with whatever you've asked for. Lunch is on board between swim stops, or ashore at a restaurant the captain has arranged. Afternoons are open: swim, sleep, watersports, paddleboard, e-foil, snorkel, whatever the group is into. The boat moves at the rhythm you set, with the captain shaping the route around weather and the constraints you can't see, the other boats in the next bay, port restrictions, fuel and water management.

Dinner is the choice that shapes the day: on board with the chef cooking, or ashore at a restaurant the captain has booked. Most clients do a mix. The chef on a well-run crewed boat is often as good as or better than most of the restaurants you'd go to ashore, so eating on board is rarely a compromise, just a different and usually quieter experience.

The captain has weather authority. If the weather is going to push your planned route into uncomfortable territory, he'll reroute. Sometimes that means a beautiful change you wouldn't have planned. Sometimes it means missing a stop you were looking forward to. It isn't negotiable on safety grounds, but a good captain explains the reasoning clearly and finds the next-best version of the day. We've written more about what can actually go wrong on a yacht charter and how the professional side handles it.

Flexibility is real but bounded. You can change the next day's plan over breakfast and the captain will work it out. You can decide mid-week to spend an extra night somewhere instead of moving on. You can ask the chef for a specific dish for tomorrow's dinner. What you can't do is materially change the contracted disembarkation port or the contracted duration without amending the contract.

10. Disembarkation, settlement and the next charter

The final morning is calmer than people expect. You wake up wherever the yacht is moored or anchored, you have a final breakfast on board, the captain has handled the bills ashore, and by midday you're stepping off the boat with your bags.

The settlement happens before you leave. The captain presents the full APA accounting with receipts: what was spent on fuel, marina, provisioning, restaurants, port taxes, everything. Any unused APA balance is returned to you, typically by bank transfer in the days after, or in cash if it's a small amount and you've requested it. Any overspend, which can happen on heavy fuel weeks or where the group ran longer days than planned, is settled with a top-up. Both directions are normal.

The gratuity to the crew is paid here. You hand the captain one amount, and he distributes it across the crew. Cash is the cleanest method, but bank transfer is fine and increasingly common.

The post-charter conversation between client and broker is short but useful. We follow up to ask what worked, what didn't, and what you'd change next time. The next charter is usually easier to book than the first, because we have the preference sheet, the wine list, the crew dynamic that worked, and the rough budget that matched the experience you wanted.

What to do next

If this is your first time looking at chartering and you want to talk it through without committing to anything, the first conversation is free and useful. We'll ask the same questions we'd ask any client, give you a realistic read on the budget, and either come back with a shortlist for your dates or tell you plainly that the timing or the brief needs adjusting. There's no obligation either way.

Reach out to us at Frontier Yachting. We've been in the business for years and we know the Mediterranean fleet inside and out.

Tell us what your ideal week on the water looks like and we'll match you to the right boat and the right crew. Your dates, your group, your budget, your priorities. We do the rest.

Get in touch and we'll find the right one. You can also browse the fleet here.

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