Letters

Owning a second-hand boat in France as a UK resident can be complex

You will need a radio licence to register the VHF radio and emergency beacons
RVillalon/Shutterstock

To the Editor,

I write regarding your recent online article about the administrative hurdles of buying a second-hand boat in France post-Brexit.

We were in the same situation when we bought our boat last year. 

We ended up registering it in Poland and insured it through a French insurer, April Insurance. 

Another option for flagging is the principality of San Marino. 

It took months of research to find out all the rules. We ended up using yachtregistration.company to make the flagging easier. 

You will also need a radio licence (which can be done online) and to register the VHF radio and emergency beacons. 

The latter takes a number of weeks via Poland but it can be temporarily registered via the UK, which is very quick, while everything else is sorted. 

We had to pay VAT import as our boat could not evidence any VAT already paid and had spent a number of years pre-Covid sailing the US and Caribbean.

S.M., by email

 

To the Editor,

Our current boat was bought in Holland in 2018 and had a (lapsed) Dutch registration. I wanted to stay with my existing boat insurer, GJW insurance, and they insisted that the boat be registered in the UK. 

This was easy to do; we now have an SSR number and the registration has to be renewed every five years. 

We spent the summer of 2019 cruising through Holland, Belgium and ‘home’ to France.

We wear a red ensign on the stern of the boat (to indicate the boat’s country of registration – UK) and we fly a French courtesy flag on the starboard side. 

We display the SSR number on the sides and stern of the boat, as well as the boat’s name. The VNF (French waterways authority) seems very happy with all of that.

We see lots of similarly adorned boats on our travels; we spend the five summer months on the boat each year, with a visa of course (which is far more complicated!). 

No one has ever asked us about VAT. I think it’s assumed that it was paid in Holland when the boat was new (it is now 31 years old).

B.L., by email

Have you purchased a boat in France since Brexit? Share your experience at letters@connexionfrance.com