The market uses yacht management and charter management almost interchangeably. It should not. The first keeps a vessel running — technical care, crew, compliance. The second sells her weeks — marketing, calendar, charter contracts. Two distinct mandates, two trades, two regulatory frameworks. The confusion is not harmless: it is often what leads an owner to put a yacht out to charter “to cover the costs” without measuring what commercial operation demands — or what it actually returns. Cursorio practises only the first trade, for private yachts and family offices. All the more reason to describe the second precisely, and to test the “charter pays for the yacht” myth against published figures.
The management mandate: keeping the ship running
Yacht management is an operating mandate. The manager takes on maintenance and yard periods, crew employment — recruitment, seafarer employment agreements, payroll and social contributions under the flag — ISM/ISPS and MLC compliance, operating accounts and reporting to the owner. Its counterpart is the owner or their family office; its objective is a vessel that is safe, compliant, available and documented. Private or commercial, that foundation does not change — it is the scope of our yacht management service.
Charter management is something else: a commercial mandate layered on top of the first, not a replacement for it. Even when a single company holds both roles, the two contracts usually remain separate.
The commercial mandate: central agency, MYBA and the APA
At the centre of the charter world sits the central agent. The mandate covers marketing the yacht to retail brokers, holding the booking calendar, and handling enquiries, contracts and payments — with funds held in a dedicated stakeholder (escrow) account until the contract is performed.
The contractual framework is largely standardised by MYBA. Founded in 1984 as the Mediterranean Yacht Brokers Association, now “MYBA The Worldwide Yachting Association”, it publishes the industry’s reference contracts — the MYBA Charter Agreement and the Memorandum of Agreement for sales — administers the B2B platform YACHTFOLIO and runs the MYBA Charter Show.
The MYBA Charter Agreement rests on the Western Mediterranean Terms: the charter fee covers the yacht and her crew “in full commission”, with operating expenses — fuel, provisions, berthing — paid by the client on top through the APA (Advance Provisioning Allowance), usually 25% of the charter fee, sometimes 30%. Typical payment terms: 50% on signature, the balance one month before embarkation. VAT and APA come on top of the advertised price.
Then there are commissions. Market practice — not an official scale published by MYBA — sits around 15% of the gross fee for the central agent, rising towards 20% when a retail broker brings the client. Negotiable ranges, but structural ones: on every week sold, roughly a fifth of the gross goes to intermediation.
Commercial operation: what the flag requires
Chartering a yacht means operating her commercially — and that changes her regulatory status. The vessel must be registered as a commercial yacht and comply with an operating code. For Red Ensign Group flags, that is the REG Yacht Code: Part A applies to yachts of 24 metres and over in load line length, in commercial use, carrying no more than 12 passengers; in force since 1 January 2019, it merged the Large Yacht Code (LY3) and the Passenger Yacht Code, with an updated edition in 2024. Beyond 12 passengers, the yacht moves into the passenger regime of Part B — 13 to 36 passengers, with requirements aligned with SOLAS.
Management systems come on top. The ISM Code has been mandatory for commercial yachts of 500 GT and over since 2001 — a Document of Compliance for the managing company, a Safety Management Certificate for the vessel. Below 500 GT, the yacht codes require a lighter system, the so-called “mini-ISM” — a flag-code requirement, not one of SOLAS itself. On the social side, MLC 2006 requires certification (the Maritime Labour Certificate) for commercial yachts of 500 GT and over on international voyages; below that threshold, compliance is still required, without a mandatory certificate. Registry choice is decided upstream — the subject of our flag and insurance service — and the crew’s social compliance belongs to MLC crew management.
More frequent surveys, class requirements, additional crew training, guest-ready turnarounds between contracts: commercial operation carries its own compliance cost before the first week is sold.
VAT, line by line
The fiscal mechanics deserve a hard look — the French case, unavoidable for Mediterranean operation, sets the scale. Charters starting in France bear VAT at the standard rate of 20%. Since late March 2020, the 50% flat-rate reduction is gone: what remains is a pro-rata temporis exemption for time actually spent outside EU waters — to be evidenced by AIS, GPS, logbook and the contractual itinerary. The French Commercial Exemption, which relieves bunkering and supplies from VAT, requires six cumulative conditions, including 70% of the previous calendar year’s voyages outside French territorial waters and fewer than 50% static charters. Italy, Malta and Croatia run their own regimes: nothing generalises, everything is checked country by country with up-to-date tax advice.
The “charter pays for the yacht” claim: the published figures
Charter’s founding myth deserves to meet the data. Boat International has published costed case studies, supplied by charter management companies (Fraser, Cecil Wright, Hill Robinson, Moran) — named examples, not market averages. A 48-metre motor yacht took in €1,592,000 over seven weeks of charter against €1,575,000 in annual costs: +€17,000. A 47-metre sailing yacht: €893,000 in revenue against €1,337,000 in costs — a €444,000 shortfall. An 85-metre: €4.68M in revenue against €5.11M in costs — €430,000 short. Only one of the three cases reaches break-even — and on running costs alone.
That is the blind spot: none of these analyses includes capital amortisation, depreciation or refits. Published analyses converge: most charter yachts offset part of their running costs — 30 to 50% is often cited — without turning a profit. And a realistic Mediterranean season is counted in weeks: commonly six to ten, twelve to fourteen for a dual-season programme with the Caribbean. Charter is a shock absorber for operating costs. It is not a business model.
Choosing with eyes open
The choice comes down to a few honest questions. How many weeks does the owner actually use the yacht — and will they give up the best ones to clients? Can they live with the wear, the guest-ready standardisation, strangers on board? Is the ownership structure ready for VAT, commissions and commercial compliance? If the answers lean private, commercial operation adds constraints without a real return.
Cursorio has settled the question for itself: we manage private yachts only, for owners and family offices, with no central agency activity. Not out of distrust of charter — it is a demanding trade with excellent houses — but because private management is a complete profession in its own right, and it deserves a manager who does nothing else.